Kathleen: Hello and welcome everyone to an exciting interview with the Canadian Young Investors Society. I'm Kathleen Qiao, your Editor-in-Chief for CYIS, and today we have a special guest, Vito Dipinto, who is a former data communications network engineer manager for a large financial institute and has 20 years of experience in real estate investment and development. Vito, it's really nice to meet you. Would you mind introducing yourself as well?
Vito: Hi, Kathleen. Well, thank you so much for having me this evening. As you said, my name is Vito DiPinto. I've been in the corporate world for quite a few years, as you said, in data communications, network, and security for a large financial institution. That was pretty much my bread and butter for most of my career. However, later on in my years, as I was slowing down, I decided to get into some real estate and development and investment, which also became a very lucrative way of generating income and keeping the ball rolling, so to speak, Kathleen. So that's where we're at.
Kathleen: Awesome. It's really great to hear the backstory. Moving on, I'm just going to go into the first question, which is what first steps would you recommend for students interested in real estate investing? Our audience is mainly high school students and university students. So it would just be really great to give some advice to some students interested in going into real estate.
Vito: Awesome. Well, listen, with the power of the internet today, there are a lot of self-educating tools you can use out there. Sites like realtor.ca, House Sigma, Zillow, and many other opportunities for information are out there. These are excellent tools and great starting points for people wanting to understand a little bit more about real estate. Not only do they have information about properties being listed and sold, but they have trends. They have analytics that can get you familiar with and give you information on the trends that are happening in real estate. Furthermore, though, making personal connections and networking with others and other investors that have had experience, you know, in investing in real estate is also very helpful. You can gain excellent information, tips, pros and cons and personal experiences from those individuals. And not to mention, there are many seminars now and workshops that are available out there for not only, you know, students, but novice investors that are interested in wanting to learn more about how they can invest, you know, maybe a little bit differently than, you know, the stock, the stock markets, mutual funds, and all that stuff.
Kathleen: Awesome. Do you have any tips for investing for connecting with people and making connections, or do you have any personal experiences where any connections have actually helped you make a good financial decision or with real estate?
Vito: Well, sure. I mean, you know, places like LinkedIn, as an example, I've been able to, and many people have reached out to me, and I've also been able to gain, you know, some opportunity, with just farming, you know, farming with different people and reaching out to different people. You know, explaining what you're doing and who you are. And so, you know, avenues like that are very important to be able to, you know, make those connections. So I highly recommend, you know, that students and anybody starting in the workplace get onto those types of sites because they branch out. And, you know, one connection can mean something big.
Kathleen: Yeah, I completely agree. I actually have my own LinkedIn now, and it's actually introduced me to a lot of great opportunities. So I completely agree with that point. But moving on to my second question, what's the most important financial lesson you've learned throughout your entire career?
Vito: Well, you know, I think it's about being able to control your finances. I mean, you know, you have advisors; you have financial advisors; you have, you know, bank staff. But the most important thing that I have to say that I really learned was to be able to take control of your direction, your finances and where you want to go. You know, analyze your situation. Don't be impulsive. Risk-taking can be very lucrative. However, you have to take and you have to make calculated risks and decisions. You know, it's, it's, it's not an easy thing to do when you're young, you're starting off, you're trying to make money. So those risks, you know, sometimes those happen a little later in life because you get into a situation or a position where you become a little bit later in your life. Whereas when you're first starting out and you're starting your job or you've got car payments or you've got mortgages, sometimes it's not as it's easier said than done. So that's the one thing that I've learned is that you know, it's easy to say I should have done it 20 years ago. If I had done this 20 years ago, you know, I would have been retired by now. Well, we're not all in a position where we have that kind of capital until we build it. So we have to start somewhere.
Kathleen: Awesome. That's great advice. Another question I have is, what common mistakes do you see beginners make and how can they avoid them?
Vito: Are you talking about investing in just any areas of finance or are you talking about investing specifically in real estate?
Kathleen: Specifically real estate.
Vito: Okay. Well, first of all, it's become very, very difficult for today's younger generation to get in the door, especially in Toronto, the GTA area. You know, the cost of borrowing may at times be very, very cheap, but the pricing of housing has become very, very expensive, even for a condominium. So for somebody who's just starting out, I mean, to carry, you know, even if you had $100,000 down to put on a condo or whatnot, you're carrying a $500,000 mortgage. So unless you're doing it with somebody, it's a very, very difficult thing to make happen. So, you know, it's become very, very difficult for, I think, our young generation today to kind of get your foot in the door. So what I would say to that is do your homework. Go to talk to bank managers, and look at what you can qualify for. You know, how much money, How much money do you have put aside to make an investment? Can you make an investment with your parents if you can't do it by yourself? So these are all things that I think you can do to position yourself to at least start understanding what it takes to start investing in real estate. I mean, there are other things out there nowadays too. They're called REITs, the REITs where you can invest kind of like a mutual fund, but your investment's going into a real estate project or it's funding a real estate project. So they're finding different ways of being able to invest in real estate instead of just going out and owning something, right? So I would say it goes back again to educating, talking to people that are gonna be able to make you understand. A lot of times people don't understand why or what the commitment is to a mortgage. What, does a mortgage mean? Right. I mean, what kind of responsibility lies with that other than just the financial responsibility? So when you talk to these different peoples, whether it's a people, whether it's a bank manager, whether it's, you know, a financial advisor, this will open the floodgates for your knowledge and, and making you more knowledgeable of the, you know, of the next steps that you'll, you'll be taken in order to invest in real estate if you decide to do so.
Kathleen: Awesome. That's great. Really good information. But moving on to the next question, what inspired you to pursue a career in data communications and finance?
Vito: Well, like I said, my career kind of split into two. It was data communications and security. And then, I mean, I was always involved in finance because when you're working for a large financial company, you're always managing. budgets and those kinds of things. But my love for computers, security, problem-solving, and working with people led me to basically what I hope to think was a lucrative and satisfying career of 30 years plus in the information technology industry. As for real estate, because I wanted to know more about it, I actually got my real estate license. I didn't really go out and sell as a regular salesperson, but I did it for my own knowledge of real estate and understanding of the laws and regulations involved with real estate. So that positioned me yet again when I did make a decision on buying real estate or investing in real estate, I really had a very, very good understanding as to the processes, the legalities, all those things that... you know, get involved with buying, you know, and selling real estate. So, and that is the real estate portion of it, I've been involved with probably more in the last 15 years, especially in personal investing, investing in real estate, or investing in mortgages. That's probably been at least 10 to 15 years now.
Kathleen: Wow. That's a long time. Just a little more specific question. Was there a specific moment or influence on your career?
Vito: Well, when it came to real estate, I really have to hand it to my father-in-law. My father-in-law was really my mentor. My father-in-law was a risk-taker. He wasn't one that basically sat back on something. He had a very keen eye for land and property investment. So, just like I've been telling you guys, I've been. I carefully listened and learned many of the great traits from him over the years that later in life I applied when it came to buying and investing in real estate and other financial investments. I quickly learned from him that, you know, you had to get your money working for you instead of you working for your money. And we do that. We do a lot of the opposite of that in our initial career, where we work very hard. We work 12 hours a day, and, you know, we're climbing up the corporate ladder and whatnot. But later on, as I was telling you before, as you get on your years and you gain this capital and you gain these experiences, you understand that by investing the money that you've already hard-earned, you can turn that money around and make a good living by doing that as well. So that's what I learned from him, and he was my mentor.
Kathleen: Wow, that sounds really inspiring. That's great. But for the last question, looking back, are there any experiences or choices in high school or university that prepared you the most for your career?
Vito: Okay, so I'm going to go back to, Grade 10, okay? And I'm going to go back to when the light clicked on for me. My accounting class teacher, Mr. Anderson, who was a wonderful man, taught us all about financial spreadsheets. He taught us about balance sheets. He taught us about income statements. He taught us about debit and credit. You know, he taught us how to balance things, right? That class has left a lasting impression on me because it's something that I've used almost my whole career, whether it's been in data communications, running budgets, whether it's been in my personal business ventures, whether it's been in my mortgage investments, or whether it's been in my real estate investments. I think those skill sets are skill sets that... I'm hoping, because it's been a long time since I've been in high school, that they're really working on teaching our generation of today because these are very important things in our day-to-day lives that make us understand how to balance budgets, how to keep us in the black instead of negative in the red. It's basically... understanding to make it or break it so so that that, and you know, I mean, throughout my career, I mean, I also progressed into, like, once I got into the data communications field, you know, once I showed very strong interest in there at that point it, it motivated me to, you know, to basically take all these other courses to get me to where I needed to be in my career. But that one thing about grade 10, I mean, I can still picture him sitting in the class with his hands under his lap, talking to us about a debit and a credit. And it's lasted. No, I'm serious. I'm dead serious. It's lasted. And whenever somebody asks me, what's the best thing that you think you learned out of school? And it was about finances and balancing things. Because in life, when you really think about it, that's what it comes down to, whether you're doing it at work or whether you're doing it in your own home for your own, you know, home budget or whether you're doing it for your investments. You're always going to have that spreadsheet, and you're always going to want to know if you're in the black or you're in the red, right? So for me, that was and is probably the most, you know, I think thing that left the biggest impression for me.
Kathleen: That sounds great. I sadly never took a finance course in my school, but I did join DECA, which is a finance club in my school. So, well, business club. So I did learn a lot from them, which I definitely would not have learned in the courses that I'm taking right now. But I think it's really important to learn finance in school. I think you—I'm not sure if you heard this—but recently the Ontario government has made a mandatory finance test for, I think, grade 10s or 11s. So there have been some updates on finance in school, so I'm really happy to hear that there's more.
Vito: It's fantastic. I mean, there's nothing wrong with everything else that they teach in school, whether it's chemistry or physics or whatever. I mean, those are things that if you're going to be specializing in are great courses to take. And everybody has an avenue and a career that they want to go through. But it doesn't matter if you're a physicist, whether you're a doctor, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether... you work at a bank branch, you have to understand finances no matter what you do, especially in your personal life. I mean, if you don't understand finances in your personal life, you're going to be in big trouble down the road. And, so for me, I think it's, you know, one of the biggest things that we need to understand, especially with the complexities of the way the world is today and how expensive things are. And, the cost of borrowing and all those things. They play really key factors. Hey, I'll put it on my visa. Well, if you don't pay your visa bill, maybe you're going to get nailed to 20% or 22% interest with a late payment. That adds up pretty quickly. So this is why it's important, right? It's really, really important. One of the reasons why I really was interested in coming and speaking with you today is because I think the word gets... has to get out there. Yeah, we definitely need to get out there. Because a lot of my classmates still don't understand a lot about finance. I'm just asking them a lot of simple questions and they still don't understand. So I think it's great that we have these organizations to help young people learn more about finance.
Kathleen: Perfect. Yeah, it's amazing. But yeah, that's all the questions I have for today. Thank you so much. I learned a lot of things today, and it was amazing talking to you. And thank you so much for joining for this time for the CYIS Journal.
Vito: Well, I'd like to thank you for inviting me. It was a pleasure. I hope, you know, everybody at least got one or two things out of here that might open their eyes. And you know that you're always welcome to reach out if you have any other questions. The door is always open. And it's great to see organizations like CYIS and CYIS you know, young, great kids like yourself that are going to be on top of the world and driving all of us one day, you know, to see the motivation and whatnot that you bring to the table. So I wish you all the best. And like I said, the door is always open for another visit or another interview, if you care to do so. Okay.
Kathleen: Awesome. Thank you so much.
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