Being an investor in real estate is often touted as a gateway to passive income and financial freedom. But is this the best way to achieve this result. A very underrated aspect within investing strategies is the idea of dividend investing. We had the opportunity to speak with a dividend value investor with over 20 years experience in the space, Kanwal Sarai, on his thoughts on this topic.
I learnt about real estate investing as part of investing strategies when I read the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. There was clearly a compelling case for building your passive income and quitting your job by concentrating on this strategy over a prolonged time. But it was not an easy journey. I used this experience as a background to speak to a colleague who has over 20 years experience as a dividend investor, and built a software product to help other dividend investors, in a recent Moulding Lives Podcast episode.
Real Estate as Part of Your Investing Strategies?
Why not start your own business? Or why not own a restaurant or a franchise? Kanwal’s dad owned a number of properties. When they were living in Montreal, he owned three different rental units. And he owned a fourth property with a friend as part of a 50/50 ownership. And every weekend, Kanwal had to go to these apartments to tend to them, mow the lawn, cut the grass, do some landscaping. Every time a tenant left, they had to repaint the entire unit. Many tenants would not leave the place in a clean state, so they needed to clean everything up. So there was a lot of time and effort dedicated to maintaining the real estate properties, in order to earn that rental income. It wasn’t truly passive income.
Yes, it’s true that an investor in real estate can use property managers. But if something is urgent (like plumbing issues), the tenants would normally contact the owner directly.
What Kanwal really liked about stocks, is that it is truly passive income. For example, he bought 185 TC Energy shares and TC energy for a total investment of $2,479 in 2001. Since then, he received over $7,500 in dividends. So his capital was completely covered. He bought the stock at $13 a share, and it’s now around $55. But it doesn’t matter what the share price is, since you get the dividend income based on owning the share itself. So, Kanwal has more than made back his initial investment, has no risk in owning this asset and passive income as part of his investing strategies. The risk goes down with each dividend payout that he receives.
Those are the benefits of dividend investing, which Kanwal doesn’t easily see with real estate. However, having a real estate portfolio is clearly a sound strategy, but it’s not as easy and possibly risk-free as dividend investing.
Dividend Investing as Part of Your Investing Strategies?
Kanwal Sarai invented the Simply Investing principles, and developed a course and software product to help you implement this dividend investing strategy as part of your investing strategies. It’s definitely a long term investing approach. He does not advocate day trading, because it’s very time consuming, and you have to know what you’re doing. And you may or may not succeed. Many of his clients are in the same position as many of us – working full time, you have children, you’re married, or you’re not, but you’re busy. And especially with children, it’s even more difficult to carve out time to dedicate on being an investor in real estate, dividend investing or just general investing strategies.
That’s one of the good things about the Simply Investing approach, since it’s very much hands off. It’s a long term approach. But there’s two things that you need to be successful. Number one, you need money. The more money you have, the more success, the more money you’ll make. That goes without saying. But the second thing is time. And what Kanwal advocates, is that the more time you have, the more time you stay invested in the market, and the more money you will earn.
If you would like to learn more about Kanwal Sarai’s dividend investing approach or would like a free trial of his software, you can find that information here:
The Simply Investing Report and Software
Investor in Real Estate or Dividend Investing :: Further Resources
In this article, we referenced much of the information from the Moulding Lives Podcast episode that we had with Kanwal Sarai, an experienced dividend investor and software founder. If you would like to watch the full episode, we included it for you here.
We also had the following amazing Google Review from Kanwal Sarai, which you can view below.
We have also had the opportunity of connecting with other amazing people making a positive difference in the world and are committed to value creation. You can view a list of these case studies here.
Being a Dividend Investor or Investor in Real Estate :: Looking for Help from an Experienced Team
Based on working with experienced investors like Kanwal Sarai over many years, we can connect you to relevant financial advisors or even show you a demonstration of software that can make these investing strategies a reality for you. Enter your details below and you’ll receive confirmation from our team and the relevant resources within one working day.