E86: Enhancing Transparency in the Canadian Rental Market

Canada’s rental crisis is often oversimplified as a mere supply and demand issue. However, for today’s guest, Weiting Bollu, it became deeply personal after losing over $35,000 to delinquent tenants and navigating Ontario’s complex rental compliance laws. Her experiences led her to recognize the critical need for a transparent and cohesive rental ecosystem that rewards responsible behavior, essential for building a fair and sustainable rental market.

Drawing on her extensive background in software product management across various sectors including education, telecommunications, insurance, and AI, Weiting co-founded Openroom with her husband, Vishal. This innovative crowdsourcing platform empowers tenants and landlords by providing access to crucial tenancy court orders and enhancing transparency in the Canadian rental market. In this episode, Weiting discusses the importance of treating rental properties as compliant businesses and tenants as valued customers.

She also offers practical advice for new landlords and sheds light on the significant challenges posed by rent nonpayment. Tuning in, you’ll gain valuable insights into creating a fair rental environment, practical tips for landlords, and a deeper understanding of how Openroom is driving positive change in the rental market. Don’t miss this opportunity to enhance your understanding of the rental landscape today! 

Key Points From This Episode: 

The tenancy dispute that Openroom was created to solve and what it offers today.
Reasons that transparency and cohesion in the rental ecosystem are so important.
Insight into Weiting’s entrepreneurial journey with her husband, Vishal.
Why landlords should treat renting property as a business and tenants as customers.
Education-focused advice for new landlords to help them overcome typical challenges.
Stats from the LTB to illustrate the trouble landlords face with nonpayment of rent. • How the law works to protect both landlords and tenants equally. 
Factors that contribute to unpaid rent and the repercussions that follow.
Ways that Openroom is working to change the rental ecosystem for the better.
How Weiting hopes to be a role model for other minority women in tech.
Why Openroom maintains its grassroots focus, even as the company scales.
Training programs, subscriptions, and more: Openroom’s approach to monetization.
Weiting’s take on rental increase caps and rent control more generally.
Listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:45.8] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to another episode of Sync or Swim, brought to you by Rentsync. From operational challenges to marketing mastery, we uncover the strategies in technologies and all things PropTech. So, let’s dive in as we explore the trends, tactics, and insights that define the future of multi-family investments. Sync or Swim starts now.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:07.8] GL: My name is Giacomo Ladas, and joining me today is Weiting Bollu, the co-founder and CEO of Openroom. Weiting, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me today, I’m really looking forward to our conversation.

[0:01:18.0] WB: Thank you Giac, long time in the making, happy to be here.

[0:01:20.5] GL: Yeah, exactly. So, let’s start off with a spiel that I’m sure you’ve said many times but we’re going to make you say it one more. For anyone who does not know, tell us a bit about yourself, how Openroom came to be, and just kind of the entrepreneurial journey in general.

[0:01:33.2] WB: Absolutely. Hi everyone, my name is Weiting Bollu and my background is actually in software product management. So, over the last decade, that is what I was doing. I was building software for AI companies, education technology, insurance technology, and then on the side, I would be helping my parents rent out their basement properties and then I had one particular property of my own. 

So, at the time of renting out my property, after a few years, tenants were fantastic for the first few years, and then I wanted to move back into my property because I wanted to grow my family. After a few years on my own, I wanted to grow, and then I had asked my tenants, “Is it okay if I move in? I need to move in.” The response was, “No, I’m not moving out, I can’t find anything and now, I’m actually just not going to pay rent anymore.” 

So, that definitely surprised me and what happened afterwards was we had gone to the LTB multiple times. With that, LTB, as folks may know, the Landlord Tenant Board, is that you come out with court orders or LTB adjudicator decisions. With that, I had seven of them, Giac, seven. I kid you not, and then I –

[0:02:41.4] GL: Only?

[0:02:41.9] WB: Yeah, only seven, only seven. So, I had sat on my bed next to my partner and I said, “These are public documents, why don’t people know about this or why aren’t these shared more publicly?” So then, over the course of a weekend during our parental leave, what we said was, “We were going to go build something.” And that was what we did. So, that was where we allowed the public to crowdsource court orders into our system.

And that was back in 2022 of July and from that point onwards, what Openroom does today is we crowdsource tenancy-specific court orders, and then we’d help make it searchable by the public. So, for use case, for the public, if you are using Openroom, you should be using it before you rent, and if you are renting to somebody to see if there are any tenancy disputes in the past.

[0:03:32.4] GL: So, why do you think transparency then in the whole rental ecosystem is so important? It sounds like you’ve had obviously, your experience has brought you to this point but maybe for the renter and the landlord side, like, what is the kind of, the vision statement that you see here and why do you think it has such an importance to everybody who are in this ecosystem?

[0:03:49.6] WB: When we look at why transparency matters, if you think back to credit cards, today if you don’t pay your credit card statement Giac, you're going to be dinged on your credit score pretty much immediately the next cycle.

[0:04:03.0] GL: Yes.

[0:04:03.0] WB: Or, mortgage payments, you get dinged. Everybody in the financial ecosystem seems to know about it but when you don’t pay your rent, it seems like nobody really knows about it and that is not okay. What that means is that people get to get away with actions and bad behaviour. From our perspective, what we’re saying is, “How do landlords make decisions today on who they rent to?”

Well, they look at the credit score, whether someone has paid their credit cards, their mortgage, but then do they know about the rental history? They don’t really. So, they have all these proxies, but then we go back, do they know the rental history? And the answer is, really, no. Unless you're super, super sophisticated and have already done rent reporting to the Credit Bureaus but that’s where Openroom comes to play is that we have that component of data point of the court orders that nobody else has.

That is going to be helping people make decisions of who they rent to and who they rent from and that’s why our vision statement is helping build transparency in the rental ecosystem to help you make more informed decisions.

[0:05:07.3] GL: And anybody who has come across your content and your website, your passion exudes through it, right? And it came to the point where, like, you’ve actually quit your job to pursue Openroom, right? And I feel like, that’s how big of a deal this is, not only to yourself and your own personal journey but there is really a need for it and it seems like a community has really been built. 

I imagine someone like you who is all in as so much as you quit your job to see it grow as the way it is. I think it must be super rewarding just as an entrepreneur itself. You know, it’s pretty amazing.

[0:05:36.7] WB: Well, if we look at all of the entrepreneurs out there, I think that we’re all pretty crazy. No one in their right mind would really –

[0:05:43.4] GL: Your words, not mine. Just make sure it’s in the show notes.

[0:05:46.6] WB: Yeah. I mean, I think we are pretty crazy because my co-founder, Vishal Bollu, is actually my significant other. So, the two of us are building this together. Yeah, so fun fact for the crowd.

[0:05:57.3] GL: And some might say even that’s crazy, getting into business with your significant other.

[0:06:00.8] WB: Yes, yes. I got to say, Giac, when it comes to being an entrepreneur, it’s not the first time that Vishal and I have started ventures but this is the first one where we’ve actually quit our full-time jobs in corporate to build something of our own at this large scale, and when we look at it and we’re like, “Yeah, we’re pretty crazy.” Because you give up a lot of money in corporate to go and build. 

But when I look at the mission that we’re on, to help people bring back that confidence, help landlords build that confidence back to put their rental units back on the market, that resonates so hard with me. When I had gone through my situation, I actually thought I was the only one, that I was this snowflake and this unique person that had experienced a nonpayment of rent tenant, losing about $35,000, but I wasn’t. 

That there were thousands upon thousands of people who were going through the exact same thing I was and sometimes, their stories are actually even worse than mine because at the time, I was actually pregnant with my little one when I was going through the situation but some people have gone through serious mental health concerns and had had miscarriages, had had their house burnt down. 

That is so painful to hear and that’s what makes me want to go on this mission because we’re solving a real problem over here.

[0:07:18.9] GL: No, and what else you're doing in all these conversations translate on is at Rentals.ca, we post a lot of rent reports where we dictate how much asking rents are across the country and I guess, it’s understandable but a lot of the feedback we get sometimes from renters is almost like, “Oh, the landlords are on one side, they’re the big evil overlords and then they’re charging this much rent to us little renters.” 

There seems to be a little disconnect that’s happening and a big part of what I try to do is to educate renters in so much as most landlords, they’re small landlords that only have a few units, and this is like their day-to-day job, right? Rent increases and the types of rent caps that a certain problem is allowed, right? It means a lot more sometimes to landlords, especially small ones who rely so heavily on this as their income. 

So, I think what I’m trying to do swiftly in this role and this conversation is to kind of bring things together in so much as renters and landlords are in the same boat, we both need each other, and maybe to look at it more as what your journey is, that you were a landlord who came across a bad renter and it seems like people don’t necessarily hear that story and that side of things from the landlord. 

It just seems that they’re an overlord, we don’t even see their face, and then the renters are the ones who are getting, for lack of a better term, screwed, right? But it’s not necessarily the case.

[0:08:27.9] WB: Yeah. I mean, comments on that would be there are two reputational points from a landlord perspective is one, there is the overlords as you quoted, is that these individuals do bad faith evictions, never look at maintenance issues, and constantly abuse the tenant’s rights but they get to do it because tenants are, at a fundamental basis, there’s an imbalance of power. 

Tenants are always going to be seen as – or feel as if they don’t have as much power as the landlords because landlords own the property that they’re living in. That’s number one, the overlords, and then there’s the other side that many people don’t actually talk about but these are people who make mistakes such as, in my situation, nonpayment of rent. I spent two years when I probably could have expedited that but these are the newbie, new landlords who think that this is passive income. It’s so easy, I have a property, I’m just going to collect rent every single month. That is not the case.

Everybody thinks it’s sunshine and rainbows until it is not, and that is something that we need to educate more of the rental community about is that, if you're going to invest in a rental property, you need to be educated on how to run a good compliant business that treats your customers who are the tenants with care and respect and people don’t think about renting or like, renting out their property as a business.

[0:09:44.1] GL: I kind of want to stick on landlords a little bit more. What do you think that small landlords are particularly struggling with and maybe what advice do you have for new landlords who want to get into this space? It seems like it is a good space to get into, right? So, maybe if those were looking, what kind of advice do you have?

[0:10:00.4] WB: From a new landlord perspective, it is, “Get educated.” Look at the resources out there, meet people who are already in the business, learn about what is it that you need to do in order to run a compliant business, and look at the guidelines, the fire code, the RTA. How does the LTB function, what is the LTB? I kid you not, a few years ago, I didn’t know, I did not know that the LTB existed. 

What the heck was the Landlord Tenant Board? And that’s because I was ignorant, for a lack of better words, ignorance is bliss. I didn’t know what I was doing, all right? I just thought, “Okay, I could collect rent.” And then, I know I have to have all the expenses paid and everything, but I was missing that fundamental piece of how the Landlord Tenants Board works. So, for new landlords out there, learn. 

And at Openroom, what we have committed to develop is the Virtual Rental Provider Training Program, where we actually teach people how to run a compliant business, and we talk about all of this because if you don’t, to the question of, “What are landlords struggling about?” They are struggling when there is a bad tenant who doesn’t pay rent or tenants who destroy, damaged properties.

[0:11:09.3] GL: Right, but other than that, it’s a good thing to do. So, I guess what you’re saying is that landlords generally – you think they have a negative view of the Landlord Tenant Board or do you think that it’s more of they don’t necessarily know it exists?

[0:11:21.9] WB: I think it’s both, okay? And let me expand on that a little bit further. One of the most frustrating parts about the Landlord and Tenant Board from a public view is that it takes so long to get to a hearing. In society, we put our trust in the justice system, and when the justice system doesn’t feel like it’s doing justice to the parties involved, then people are really upset. This is not just from a landlord's perspective because even if you're a tenant, applying for a case or a matter to be heard at the Landlord Tenant Board, you still have to wait several months for it to get heard.

It’s just that the majority of the cases going to the LTB is from the landlord’s perspective. So, if we look at some of the stats, Giac, in 2022 to 2023, there were about 73,000 applications submitted into the Landlord Tenant Board. 63,000 or so are from the landlord’s side, and then 54% of that, of the 60,000, is for nonpayment of rent. That’s insane if we look at it. So, pretty much, all of the backlog is because of the nonpayment of rent situations. 

If we look at it a little bit deeper into the data that Openroom has on these court orders because we’ve been extracting information or data from these court orders, we look at, what does the nonpayment of rent situation look like? In 2021, if you had a nonpayment of rent tenant, you’d be down roughly, on average, $8,000. Fast-forward to 2024, it is now double that, okay? So, that is concerning and we’re seeing a year-over-year increase of 27% per year of nonpayment of rent. That’s painful and that is why so many small landlords don’t want to put up their most affordable units. So, this would be your basements or like an extra room, people are just so scared right now.

[0:13:16.2] GL: Yeah, it all seems a little hard to believe but I wonder how much of it has to do with like, you know, the shifting landscape of just kind of, the economy, how much people have, what kind of work is there for people. Do people have less money now? Does the dollar stretch as far as it is now? I wonder if it all seems to kind of funnel down towards housing costs and unfortunately, maybe it’s more of a sign of the country or the economy or the job market that this is what’s happening for renters, right?

I wonder if this is like a, you know, a microcosm of something else, a little bit larger, which it might be, I’m not too sure but you just need to have a little more data on that.

[0:13:49.5] WB: Yes. I think that people don’t see what’s happening at the Landlord Tenant Board. When we look at these adjudicators, the LTB has hired more but these are humans behind the screens. It’s not like they don’t care about the matters being heard, it’s that they’re going through 30, 40, 50 cases every single day, virtually. Can you imagine being on a virtual call eight hours a day and then after that, you got to go through another one the next day and then another one, and then you got to go and write orders afterwards?

Many of these cases are actually very unique because there are situations like you said, where the economy is shifting towards hardship. We’re going to see more layoffs which we have seen massive layoffs already but there are situations where the renters are in a bind, and that means that they might not be able to pay rent but then they end up at the Landlord Tenant Board. So, those are some of the situations where we should have more sympathy towards the one-time occasions but when people are doing that purposefully to game the system, that is not okay.

[0:14:48.7] GL: No, of course, and it’s interesting too because we see so many stories online of you know, there is two or three blocks lined up and people are driving around, curious what it was and it’s actually a lineup of people to look at an available apartment. There’s so much competition right now and there’s so little supply for the demand that we’re seeing that I kind of almost thought that renters would actually be so looking forward to actually getting the place and paying because just finding an apartment is hard enough.

But I do understand that that’s only half the side of things and that there’s probably so many, thousands and thousands of renters right now who are struggling to make rent and I think that kind of goes well into maybe moving a little bit more towards landlords but do you think the legal landscape in Ontario specifically, is it favouring the tenant then more than the landlord or is it just because there’s so many more tenant claims? Do you think there is a favourable side of things right now?

[0:15:40.9] WB: I don’t think that it’s a either/or situation. I think that it’s a situation where tenants' rights need to be protected because earlier, remember how we were talking about the imbalance of power, right? We have landlords who are doing bad faith evictions. That is not okay and these landlords should be held accountable for their actions, and therefore, the government has to come out with more laws about how to protect the tenants in those situations.

So, I actually think that the government is doing a good job in that regard. I think, what happens is, with the backlogs and with all of the other things, people feel like it’s unfair to them waiting so long to get their cases heard, like five months, that’s five months of unpaid rent. That’s painful. So, when I look at the legal landscape, I don’t think that the government is at fault for what they have done so far. 

I think that it’s actually pretty well-balanced and from the perspective of where tenants feel as if it’s all leaning towards the other side, there’s like both sides, right? You have tenants feeling like it’s all about landlords and they just want to evict and then the landlord side, it’s all about wanting to evict the tenants to raise rents but that’s just the sensational stories that we hear in the media that you were referring to earlier. 

The majority of tenants are responsible tenants and I think that if we can move towards more highlighting the great tenants that are out there, that is what’s going to be very beneficial for the community.

[0:17:10.6] GL: I’m assuming that’s a large portion of what you have to do as well is almost, when we educate tenants and landlords, it’s also educating that for the most part, things are good, tenants are good, landlords are good, right? I do wonder, and you’ve probably seen a lot more than I do about stories on your site, but I’m sure when you get – hearing the negative too much, you almost forget that actually, most people are just trying their best. 

Most of them are good tenants and landlords but how do we make sure that those are the ones that we welcome into our vacant units? So, I think that is kind of the whole education part of things is that there’s some positivity behind all of this even though it may have started from a negative side from yourself. I think there is some positivity through this. 

[0:17:48.5] WB: Absolutely. I do believe that there is many, many more positive elements, Giac. When we look at what Openroom is trying to do, we’re trying to build towards a better future, a transparent future and hopefully, we get to be a part of that solution to the housing crisis. If we can get more of those vacant units back onto the market, that’s a positive. 

[0:18:08.6] GL: So, are there any interesting trends or maybe data that you kind of found Openroom that you’d be willing to kind of, to share with others? I don’t want to know the secret or how the recipe is made but maybe some interesting trend to share with us. 

[0:18:20.3] WB: Absolutely. Well, I shared about the 2021 versus 2024, the nonpayment of rent data. Now, let me share a couple more that I had written down here, okay? So, in 2022 and 2023, the LTB had a report of their operations, which stated that they were about the 73,000 applications and what I wanted to share with the community is that from Openroom side, we actually have 6,000 of the 2022 to 2023 orders. 

So, that means that we have roughly at about 8% of the orders. Now, 8% isn’t everything but yet, we’re still seeing significant usage of Openroom in the thousands, thousands of visitors to the site every single month. So, what I want to do is make sure that the audience knows if you have a quarter that you can contribute to Openroom, please send it in, okay? And then one more stat that I had written down here that I want to share with you is that in the last few years, there were about $110 million of unpaid rent. 

110 million just based on what we have in our system. So, if we extrapolate that out, right? If we just do some basic arithmetic math, we’re looking at over a billion dollars over the last couple of years that was from unpaid rent and I think that we need to talk about that more as a hardcore dataset because that means the government isn’t getting taxes. They’re not collecting any taxes on that unpaid rent and that money isn’t flowing in the rental ecosystem. Where is it going? And that’s what’s very interesting on our part. 

[0:19:54.2] GL: Yeah, it’s almost interesting to see almost. Why, why aren’t they paying their rent? Is it just that they haven’t – they’re coming on hard times, they don’t have a job, or they came out of work, or they’re just drowning in student loans? You know, I’m almost wondering why is it so much. It seems almost made up but that’s how much money is unpaid rent. You’re almost wondering what’s wrong, where is this disconnect? Are they charging too much for rent but then why do they agree to sign the lease? You almost wonder why this is happening. 

[0:20:18.3] WB: There are many reasons why it’s happening and we touched on the fact that the environment, today’s economy it’s tough. That’s one, the other side is people know about the wait times at the LTB and they know that they could technically get away with multiple months of nonpayment of rent, and then the third part is, is that there’s barely any repercussions if you have nonpayment of rent. So, those, like three added together, it makes it very, very difficult. 

[0:20:47.8] GL: I want to touch on that too, the repercussions are – they’re almost nothing, right? They just kind of send you on your way. Am I right in assuming that? 

[0:20:56.2] WB: It’s at a high level, pretty much that. When we look at the repercussions of someone not paying rent, that is exactly what Openroom is trying to change. How do we hold people accountable for their bad actions? So, when we look at nonpayment of rent, what are some repercussions? Well, now, we put more emphasis or meaning behind the court order. Yes, the court order gets you to an eviction if there is actually a nonpayment of rent situation. 

After a few weeks, you can go to the sheriff and you get vacant possession of your property but then, now you get to post it inside Openroom and make it more public so that other people can see this public information and search it to help themselves make more informed decisions. The next piece that we’re going to be working towards is rental debt. So, if there is rental debt owed on that court order, we’re going to be sending it to Equifax, to TransUnion, and making sure that it does hit the credit score and the credit history, just like your credit card payments if you miss one. 

[0:21:54.2] GL: You got my wheels turning a little bit there but I can imagine that the roadmap of what you’re looking at too is that’s what’s almost more exciting is as these touch points come of what do we do and what do we add to the site and I think as yourself, a woman in tech, a woman in real estate, it’s just there’s a whole bunch that come with that and I think also a responsibility too that you know, now you have a great product but what are we going to add to it?

What’s coming down the road and how do we keep this high standard, and I think that’s what’s kind of exciting and I’m sure it’s been an amazing journey for you as well because there’s not that many in the space, right? So, it’s kind of a unique spot that you represent. 

[0:22:27.3] WB: Yeah, when it comes to women in tech, it’s always talked about that there is not enough representation or that VC funding, venture capital funding. There is very few for women and not just women but women of minority, right? So, I do see myself as like a man. I don’t see as many people out there like me but that’s what makes it very interesting, Giac, is that I get to be that different person, and hopefully, other people who may look like me can see, “Wow, there’s writing out there, maybe I could go do something myself as well.” 

So, being that role model is what I hope I could be or am to some people. Because there are so few, any founders out there, I’ve actually started connecting with so many other founders, cofounders, entrepreneurs, and I love talking to them because nobody understands the hustle that we go through other than a true entrepreneur who is trying to bootstrap their company or working at two AM in the evening. 

[0:23:23.0] GL: Well, and trying to raise a family too, right? There’s like – 

[0:23:25.1] WB: Yes. 

[0:23:25.7] GL: It’s not like this is your only priority, right? So, I think that there’s a small number of people who actually can relate to that and I’m sure just sharing your story and getting feedback like that, I don’t know, does it fuel you more? Does it inspire you more just to hear other people talk about this? 

[0:23:39.8] WB: Absolutely. When we look at how we build Openroom, we’re always building with the community. So, something that Rentals.ca is joining us on is our community update call and we host that once a quarter and that’s where we bring in our community members where they could help us contribute to the Openroom build of the actual product and services that we offer. 

So, the next piece that we’re looking at for example would be, how do we give people a second chance if they did have nonpayment of rent because right now, what we see in the market is that if you have a nonpayment of rent situation inside Openroom, then the chances of you getting rentals is going to be more difficult, more difficult. But if you end up paying back the rent, how can we help you and how do we display that in the software. So, that is what we’re calling our community to help us with. 

[0:24:32.2] GL: I would imagine that’s a very tough sell though to tell the landlord, “Okay, this person has been late, hasn’t paid in a while, but rent your unit out to them.” I imagine that’s going to be a really interesting conversation that we’re kind of partnering in but I don’t know, you know I am genuinely curious how you do it. How do you do it, especially when things are so tight as it is so?

[0:24:51.7] WB: Yeah, well, we’ll see. We’ll see. When I look at building a company, I often say to people I’ve got three babies under two years old, right? So, I’ve got two kids as well as a company that is pretty, pretty much in its infancies but that’s why we call on in our community and it’s so important that we work with the individual tenants and the landlords and the property managers, paralegals, legal community. They’re so important to us. 

We started grassroots and that is where we see the future as well is that we need to care for the small individual landlords, players in the rental ecosystem because it seems like all of the larger players have built their network, their ecosystem, they talk to each other all the time but with the small fragmented groups of individuals, we’re not talking and we need to start doing more of that connecting together. 

[0:25:41.2] GL: Yeah, and especially because it is such a human story as someone’s home and on the other side, someone’s livelihood. So, I think these community calls are actually kind of the way to do it and maybe it’s you know, the unfortunate side of this industry and especially with [inaudible 0:25:54] but you really do have to get out there and listen to people and listen to what they’re saying almost on an individual basis because it’s not like so much as a one size fits all. 

But I think that’s what kind of keeps it unique and different every day for you. So, I find that really interesting. I’m just genuinely curious and I’m sure you get asked this all the time but the whole idea of monetization and how we do that with Openroom, how does that kind of work with this? 

[0:26:17.9] WB: Yes, it’s such an interesting question because when we had first built Openroom, we knew that there are costs behind the software but we said, “All right, it’s a minimal cost to put up in a website, let’s do this.” But now that we’ve reached scale, now we’re like, “All right, we got to make sure that we can still service the community because we are seen as an essential service to the rental ecosystem at the moment.” 

So, there are a couple of ways that we are making money already, which is through our Rental Housing Provider Training Programs. So, many people take that program, they learn with us. The other side is we have a SaaS subscription, so there is that monthly recurring cost that you can pay into Openroom if you want to receive more services from Openroom, and then the last piece that we are doing that we’ll get to talk more about very soon is we’re going to be powering the tenants screening companies. 

So, think about companies that help you pull a report from Equifax, TransUnion, Nova Credit, we’re going to be an additional data point inside that report for people and that is going to be very interesting because remember earlier, we were talking about putting meaning behind a court order. Now, it’s not just inside Openroom but it is going to be a fundamental data point inside other services that are being provided in the rental ecosystem and it’s going to reach hundreds of thousands more people. 

[0:27:32.0] GL: No, that’s exciting just because I’m sure we have a bunch of entrepreneurs who are listening as well that almost you know, maybe they’re in a separate actual area but they want to listen just for that story as well and I think kind of going back a little bit to Openroom there with the whole training program, I think that part, we haven’t really touched too much on that but tell me more offerings of what Openroom has and exactly what is the training program. I know, I kind of know what it is but I think maybe for someone to just kind of – to give a little plug on that as well. 

[0:27:59.1] WB: Sure. When it comes to our training program, it is done virtually. You can do it anytime, it’s about 36 hours of pure good content and it’s taught by head instructor, Chris Seepe. Chris was a former real estate broker on the commercial side, he owns and operates himself, his own units about 70 of them. What his major mantra is, “Stay away from the LTB by doing things the right way.” 

And that is what we’re teaching in the course. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme, we’re not about that. It is talking about how this is hard work and after the 36 hours of online course, you might think, “You know what? I don’t want to be in this business at all.” 

[0:28:40.2] GL: Yeah.

[0:28:41.0] WB: That is what I came out as, I was like, “Wow.” I learned so much when I first learned with Chris, and then we also looked at one dollar of net operating income equals 20 dollars of joy, which is your equity. So, every spend, every renovation dollar that you put in here, does it make sense? Should you do it? What do you do when your tenant doesn’t pay rent? All of that situation scenarios get mapped out and then we talk about it. We teach it so that you feel good about owning a compliant rental business. 

[0:29:11.0] GL: You know, I want to put you on the spot a little bit with some news that just came out and I think you’d have a really interesting perspective on this but so, Ontario’s guideline for the rent cap increase, they just said that it’s going to remain at two and a half percent. It’s been that for a couple of years now but they’re going to keep it at two and a half percent, which is below the inflation rate that we saw of 3.1% in Ontario for the past year. 

I’m kind of curious how you look at rent caps and rent control and from the tenant and landlord side of things, I have my own opinions on that but you know, especially with Ontario just saying that’s going to be two and a half percent again, we’ve been getting a lot of feedback from both the renters and landlord side. So, I’d love to hear what your opinion is on that and just kind of rent caps in general.

[0:29:48.8] WB: Yeah. I mean, is your opinion quite controversial? I’d love to hear yours first.

[0:29:53.9] GL: Well, I think my opinion is rent control and rent cap I think is really great in the short term. Now, as a renter myself, when everything seems to be going up, it’s kind of nice to know that my housing costs are going to be relatively the same. I think it’s really good in the short term. However, when we look at the data, especially with our rent of course, it seems like the cities and provinces that do have a more harsh rent control, the rate of increase in rent goes up much faster than areas that don’t and they have much higher asking rents than provinces or cities that don’t. 

So, when you just look at the data, it actually looks like those areas, rent’s more expensive. You know, there’s a lot of reasons why I think that’s the case but I think that it’s kind of interesting that where – like, it is good but then why are you asking rents so much higher in those areas that have it? So, that’s kind of my perspective on it. We can go into more detail as well but I’m just kind of curious as somebody who was a landlord in this industry, even more so that, or day to day, what are your kind of thoughts on that?

[0:30:44.1] WB: I agree with you that it is necessary to have a reasonable cap because housing is a right. At a basic fundamental level, people need a place to live. You can’t go without shelter, so people need it. So, I respect the government in putting policies out here like this. When we look at the inflation rate being higher than the rent increase caps, what we’ll see is people starting to leave the market even more, right?

Landlords don’t want to put their units back on the market anymore but then, what we have is also people who will do the evictions, the bad faith evictions and so, when people do that, it means that you will still have the scrupulous landlords who make a bad reputation for every other small landlord that is out there. It’s hard to run a rental business and at the end of it, people are doing the rental side as a business, all right? 

So, if the government and the economy doesn’t allow for people to be an investor, then, we’re going to see mass exodus of people wanting to rent out their properties and so, it could be problematic but you know what? 2.5% is better than zero than we had some years ago, right? 

[0:31:54.7] GL: It is. I’m just trying to think, you know, selfishly, if I had it, a unit to rent, right? And my cost to keep the property is going up faster than what I can increase the tenant's rent, I could see why landlords look at that as not a great thing, right? You do understand both sides, and obviously, whenever we post these rent reports and/or anything really into the cost, all the comments that renters have for us and we do a bunch of surveys as well about the rising cost of rents and they all say rent control and rent cap.

I just always want to use this outlet to kind of educate them and what that actually means and what that actually gives you. You know, no one’s going to tell somebody, “Hey, your rent, can I go up this much?” That’s a bad thing but there are some negative sides of it when you look at it as a business and I think that most landlords are small landlords. They rely on these couple of units, you know, to feed their families, right? 

So, I think there is the human element as well. I think that’s what you guys do really well is that both sides are humans, housing is a right, so it’s a sensitive subject but how do we make it fair? And I think that’s a great journey that you're on and I’m really happy that we got to have this discussion today about it.

[0:32:55.1] WB: Thank you so much, Giac. It was a pleasure to talk more about the rental housing market. I definitely believe that there could be more room for players that have solutions to help with the housing crisis, that it’s not a one-player-takes-all. We should all gather together if you have a solution, you should come in and help but don’t be a perpetrator to make it even worse, all right? We need to hold people accountable but help people make more informed decisions.

[0:33:21.8] GL: Completely agree, and if somebody wants to get a hold of you or see the website or the upcoming community quarterly update call, what are the next steps? How do people get a hold of you? We’ll put everything in the show notes but what’s the best way to do so?

[0:33:33.4] WB: Absolutely. I love it when people get in touch with me and I actually try to respond to every single email when I can. Sometimes I might miss it in my inbox but you can always reach us, go to our website first at Openroom.ca, and then, all of the connect with us opportunities are out there. So, you can connect with us on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, email, all of that is available, I love it. 

But the action item I want people to take away is if you have a court order, please send it to us, and that is not just LTB, that is across Canada, even at Tribunal level, but also divisional courts, superior courts, supreme courts, we want it all if it relates to the tenancy disputes.

[0:34:12.5] GL: Perfect. Okay, again, Weiting, thank you so much. This was a really great time just to chat with you today. I’m sure we’ll cross paths again in the future and I really implore everybody who needs this service, Openroom.ca is your place to go. So, again, thank you so much and hopefully, we’ll cross paths again in the future.

[0:34:27.8] WB: Thank you very much everybody.

[0:34:28.8] GL: Okay, bye-bye. 

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:34:30.6] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Sync or Swim, brought to you by Rentsync. If you enjoyed today’s show, make sure to visit www.rentsync.com/podcast, for detailed show notes, key takeaways, and more. Thanks for listening.

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