Hey friends, this is Erwin Szeto, and welcome to The Truth About Real Estate Investing for Canadians, where it’s my job to interview the top minds in real estate and business to uncover the strategies, mindsets, and habits that actually work—especially in today’s market.

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Ben Berry, a true industry heavyweight who's successfully deployed over $2 billion into single-family rentals, build-to-rent, and commercial real estate assets. Ben’s journey began during the depths of the 2009 global financial crisis, where he carved out his path in commercial real estate before pioneering large-scale single-family home acquisitions during the U.S. housing recovery. His leadership helped operationalize the mass acquisition, rehab, and management of thousands of homes backed by major Wall Street and Canadian institutional investors.

Now, Ben is the Vice President of Acquisitions and Sales at SHARE, a platform revolutionizing real estate investing by making U.S. rental property ownership simple, passive, and accessible — even to everyday Canadian investors. With boots-on-the-ground expertise across over 20 markets — from Florida to Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, etc… — Ben shares how institutional best practices are now being offered without the need to bring $50M to the table.

We also talk about why landlord-friendly states matter, how technology and data have transformed real estate investing, and how Canadians now invest just like the ultra wealthy and finally escape tenant friendly markets and find deals that actually make sense. If you're serious about investing smarter in real estate, this episode is a must-listen.

If you’d like to connect with Ben you can go to iwin.sharesfr.com and click the “Schedule a call”

Please enjoy the show!

Hey friends, this is Erwin Szeto, and welcome to The Truth About Real Estate Investing for Canadians, where it’s my job to interview the top minds in real estate and business to uncover the strategies, mindsets, and habits that actually work—especially in today’s market.

My guest today is Michael Ponte—a full-time real estate investor, educator, and co-founder of Savvy Investor. He’s been investing for more than 20 years and owns a multi-provincial portfolio that spans Alberta, BC, and Atlantic Canada. He’s raised capital, survived multiple recessions, and built a strategy around what he calls “lazy investing”—focused on cash flow, simplicity, and long-term success.

In this episode, we get into:

• Why he avoids over-leveraged strategies like promissory notes and MLI Select
  
• What it’s like to refinance and pull nearly $1 million out of a property
  
• And how he built a business around student rentals, multi-family units, and zero tolerance for rent control
  

Also—Michael is hosting a free virtual boot camp on May 3rd, and I’ll be one of the speakers. It’s called The Savvy Investor Boot Camp, and it covers everything from BRRRRs to private lending to U.S. investing. You can register at thesavvyinvestor.ca -- again, it’s completely free.

Now, please enjoy my conversation with Michael Ponte.

Greetings friends, this is Erwin Szeto, and welcome to The Truth About Real Estate Investing for Canadians, the #9 ranked podcast for Canadian Investment and Personal Finance per FeedSpot! Thank you listeners and past guests of this show! As always it’s a honour to have this platform and ability to give back to the community that has been so much to my family and I where we all share a passion for the best investment class in the world: real estate. Here on this show, it’s my job to interview the top minds in real estate investing and business to uncover the strategies, mindsets, and habits that actually work—especially in today’s market.

This week’s guest is Scott Dillingham, founder of LendCity Mortgages, is returning to the show with a mortgage market update! He is a rare expert in both Canadian and U.S. real estate financing.

Scott built his career helping investors—starting as a high-volume mortgage broker at one of Canada’s Big Four banks for ten years, where he consistently ranked among the top 1% nationwide. In his peak year, he closed over 410 mortgage deals, most of them for investment properties.

He’s also a seasoned real estate investor himself, owning dozens of rental units, which gives him firsthand insight into the challenges his clients face.

What makes Scott especially unique is that, as a dual citizen, he’s able to own and operate mortgage brokerages in both Canada and the U.S.—something rare, I don’t know anyone else who can do that. That means Canadian investors working with Scott can access lending strategies, mortgage approvals, and support for properties on both sides of the border—all under one team.

Through LendCity, Scott works with over 60 lenders in Canada and 2,500+ lending sources in the U.S., helping investors scale smarter no matter where they’re buying.

📍Catch him live Saturday morning April 26th Half-Day iWIN Meeting. We have in person seats which are almost sold out and a bit of room online for those who live a bit further away. We survey our subscribers and you want to hear about landlord friendly strategies: student rentals, short term rentals and the US and that’s what you’ll get! My team and I will be sharing a local real estate market update including rentals, tips on selling tenanted properties and Scott will be live and in person where he’ll share best practices on financing and navigating both Canadian and U.S. lending markets.

🎟️ Register here: https://iwinmeeting.eventbrite.ca/?aff=ig

Please enjoy the show!