The Best Real Estate Investing Advice From REIcon 2026

The Best Real Estate Investing Advice From REIcon 2026 REIcon 2026 is officially over. After a packed weekend of presentations, panels, live coaching, deal analysis and conversations with investors from across Canada, Wayne and Gabby are back on the Canadian Real Estate Investing Morning Show sharing some of the best advice they gave from the stage. In today's episode, they recap several of the biggest lessons from the weekend, including a creative way to negotiate inspection repairs, the three real estate opportunities Wayne believes are strongest in Edmonton right now, why residential real estate should not automatically be considered inferior to multifamily, and why buying the property is only the beginning. One of the biggest messages from the weekend: You don't make all your money when you buy the property. How you manage that property afterward determines what you actually keep. Don't Leave an Event Without What You Came For Wayne's final advice before leaving REIcon on Saturday was simple. If you paid to attend an educational event and still have a question preventing you from taking action, do not leave without getting it answered. Find the person who knows. Ask the expert. Talk to the lender. Talk to the lawyer. Talk to the investor. Talk to the contractor. The entire point of attending an event like REIcon is to leave with more clarity than you arrived with. Monday morning eventually comes. Motivation fades. What matters is whether you actually learned something that allows you to take the next step. A Creative Way to Negotiate Inspection Repairs One of Gabby's favourite conversations happened Friday night. An investor had a property under contract. The numbers worked. He liked the property. Then the home inspection revealed several repairs. The seller did not want to reduce the price or complete the work. The investor was considering walking away because every additional dollar he personally invested into repairs would reduce his return on investment. Gabby suggested a different approach. Instead of asking the seller to lower the purchase price: Increase it. Then require the seller to complete the repairs before closing. Why? Because the increased purchase price may allow more of the total acquisition cost to be incorporated into the mortgage financing, while the seller uses the additional proceeds to complete the required work. The seller can potentially walk away with roughly the same net amount. The buyer avoids funding the entire repair bill separately out of pocket. And the deal may stay together. It will not work in every transaction and needs to make sense with the lender, appraisal and contract structure, but it demonstrates an important investing principle: Price is only one part of a negotiation. Stop Obsessing Only Over Purchase Price Investors often become fixated on negotiating the lowest possible purchase price. But the better question is: How do I structure the entire transaction so the investment works? Price. Repairs. Closing date. Financing. Conditions. Credits. Terms. Possession. All of these can matter. Sometimes paying slightly more for the property can actually create a better investment if the overall structure reduces the amount of additional cash you need to contribute. The Three Edmonton Opportunities Wayne Highlighted at REIcon During Saturday morning's live Morning Show, Wayne shared the three opportunities he currently believes are among the strongest in Edmonton: Legal suited houses Edmonton townhouses Multi-unit garden suites Each opportunity serves a different investor. Different capital. Different experience. Different risk tolerance. Different return expectations. There is no single asset class that is automatically superior to everything else. #1: Legal Suited Houses If somebody forced Wayne to choose a straightforward Edmonton rental property for an investor with limited experience, he would choose a legal suited house. Why? They are relatively simple. They have diversified rental income. They serve a broad tenant base. They tend to be resilient. And Wayne believes they are difficult to completely mess up if they are purchased properly. The trade-off? They may not produce the highest returns. Wayne describes them more as a safe and dependable strategy than the highest-return strategy available. For someone wanting a relatively straightforward long-term rental property, that can be exactly what they need. #2: Edmonton Townhouses Edmonton townhouses remain one of Wayne's favourite opportunities. He has been buying them for years. His students are buying them. And he believes the opportunity still exists today. A major advantage is accessibility. A typical Edmonton townhouse may sell for approximately $200,000 to $220,000. At 20% down, that means an investor may need approximately: $40,000 to $44,000 for the down payment. Compare that with a suited house requiring closer to $100,000 or a development requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars. That lower entry point makes townhouses accessible to far more investors. Why Wayne Likes Townhouses So Much Wayne says the returns he has achieved on carefully selected Edmonton townhouses have been exceptional when combining: Appreciation Mortgage paydown Cash flow Some properties were purchased for approximately $160,000 and are now worth well over $200,000. On certain investments, Wayne says the combined return relative to the original invested capital has exceeded 100%. That does NOT mean every Edmonton townhouse will produce those results. The complex matters. The neighbourhood matters. The condo corporation matters. The purchase price matters. Due diligence matters. The property still needs to be selected properly. But Wayne believes investors continue to overlook the strategy because it does not sound as impressive as owning a large apartment building. Residential vs Multifamily One of Wayne's messages throughout the weekend was: Residential and multifamily are apples and oranges. Multifamily is not automatically the "next level." Residential is not automatically beginner investing. Some multifamily deals will outperform residential deals. Some residential deals will dramatically outperform multifamily deals. The correct comparison is the actual investment. Capital required. Cash flow. Risk. Return. Financing. Management. Exit options. Potential appreciation. Wayne believes investors sometimes chase multifamily because it feels bigger rather than because the actual numbers are better. #3: Edmonton Garden Suites The third major opportunity is multi-unit garden suites. This strategy requires considerably more capital and sophistication. Wayne and Gabby are currently developing multi-unit garden suites behind existing Edmonton houses. Instead of demolishing the original house, they retain it and build additional residential units on the property. The finished property can then potentially operate more like a multifamily asset. The strategy combines: An existing house. Newly created units. New rental income. Value creation through development. And potentially an income-based appraisal upon completion. Creating Hundreds of Thousands in Equity Wayne says their current garden-suite developments are projected to create substantial equity upon completion. Depending on the individual property, he discusses potential value creation in the range of approximately: $250,000 to $400,000 The strategy may also allow them to refinance the completed property and recover a significant portion, and potentially all, of the original invested capital. The remaining property then continues operating as a cash-flowing asset. This is effectively a development version of the BRRRR strategy. But Wayne emphasizes that this is considerably more complicated than simply buying a townhouse or suited house. Execution matters. Financing matters. Development costs matter. Property selection matters. Appraisal methodology matters. And investors need enough capital to complete the project. The Window of Opportunity Is Closing Wayne has been discussing Edmonton's investment window for several years. His view remains that Edmonton prices are still relatively affordable compared with the rents certain properties can produce. But that relationship will not last forever. Prices have been increasing. Certain rents are now softening. And eventually the rent-to-price ratio will become less attractive. Wayne believes Edmonton is already partway through that window. The goal is not to panic-buy. The goal is to recognize opportunities while the fundamentals still work. Buying the Property Is Only the Beginning One of Gabby's strongest messages from the weekend came during their property and asset management presentation. Investors spend enormous amounts of time learning: How to find a deal. How to analyze it. How to negotiate it. How to finance it. How to close it. But ownership can last 20 years. The acquisition may take a few weeks. The management lasts decades. Gabby's point: Once you take possession, how you manage the property ultimately determines your profits. A fantastic deal can become a terrible investment through poor management. You Can Self-Manage a Large Portfolio Wayne and Gabby also challenged the idea that investors automatically need a professional property manager as their portfolio grows. They have self-managed their rental portfolio remotely since they started. That does not mean personally doing everything. It means building systems. Communication systems. Maintenance systems. Inspection systems. Rent collection systems. Renewal systems. Contractor systems. Bookkeeping systems. Documentation systems. Then, as the portfolio grows, specific tasks can be delegated. Wayne and Gabby now use an assistant for portions of the communication and administration. But the assistant operates inside systems they created. That distinction matters. Trust the System Wayne describes seeing rental-property emails during the REIcon weekend and barely registering them. Years ago, those issues might have consumed his attention. Today, he trusts the system. That allows him to focus on: Acquisitions. Developments. New businesses. Joint ventures. Raising capital. Family. And everything else requiring his attention. That is the real purpose of systems. Not simply organization. Freedom. Remote Property Management Course – 50% Off This Week Following the response to their REIcon presentation, Gabby is offering a temporary 50% discount on the REI Masters Remote Property Management Course. The course teaches the systems Wayne and Gabby use to manage their rental portfolio remotely. The eight-module course covers how to create a property-management operation that does not require the owner to personally attend every showing, inspection, maintenance call or tenant issue. Visit: www.reimasters.ca Use discount code: 50OFF for 50% off during the promotional period discussed on today's show. The Main Lesson Buying a great property matters. But buying the property is only the beginning. A great acquisition with terrible management can still become a terrible investment. The goal is to: Buy correctly. Finance correctly. Manage correctly. Build systems. And hold great properties for the long term. That is how real estate becomes a wealth-building business instead of a series of transactions. REI Masters Mentorship Work directly with Wayne and Gabby on acquisitions, financing, market selection, due diligence, joint ventures, property management, BRRRR strategies and building a profitable Canadian real estate portfolio. www.reimasters.ca The 5% Rule™ Learn Wayne Hillier's framework for evaluating rental-property cash flow. Search The 5% Rule by Wayne Hillier on Amazon. Watch the Morning Show Join Wayne and Gabby every weekday morning at 7:00 AM Mountain Time on YouTube. Follow Wayne Hillier – Real Estate Investing Coach on YouTube. Questions: info@reimorningshow.com Upcoming Event REI Masters Annual Retreat Edmonton, Alberta October 17–18, 2026 www.reimasters.ca Sponsors Calvin Realty – Edmonton Investor-Focused Realtor Team www.calvinrealty.ca Finngo Bookkeeping & Tax Specialized bookkeeping and tax services for Canadian real estate investors. www.finngo.com/rei Kirkwood & Brennan Mortgage Group Investor-focused mortgage planning for Canadian real estate investors. www.kbmortgages.ca keaton@kbmortgages.ca