Jase Lachowiez celebrated his 19th birthday last Saturday. While most kids his age might celebrate with their first legal drink at the bars, he's celebrating the closure of his first commercial real estate property.
Lachowiez spent last year as a high school student as well as a forward for the U18 Oakville Rangers AA team, which was the highest-level Rangers team in the organization's history to win the OHFs.
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In addition to these commitments, Lachowiez has spent over four years as the co-owner of MJ Landscapers, a business he started when he was in grade 9 as a side hustle to his job as a Starbucks Barista in Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital.
Once Lachowiez started landscaping properties in downtown Oakville, he realized there was another level to this life he hadn't yet discovered.
He started speaking with the homeowners and realized a recurring theme: nobody worked for anyone, and they all owned real estate.
When Jase's parents encouraged him to get a summer job like other kids his age, he told his parents he would never work for anyone other than himself.
"Jase has always had a strong work ethic," said Laura, Jase's mother. "He is proactive and takes initiative; he sets his goals and puts plans in place to achieve them."
In an interview with Jase, he shared his enthusiasm for what he does and explained his story in detail.
"We built up a solid team, and we started servicing a lot of real estate agents to landscape properties for showings," Lachowiez said. "I then started looking into the industry and realized the potential of real estate investing and decided to learn as much as I could."
What started as mere curiosity led to an obsession for Lachowiez. He began reading books about investing in real estate, commercial real estate, and entrepreneurship, and he quickly became an established professional within the industry.
"Rich Dad, Poor Dad was a good starter buy. Real Estate Investing by Bigger Pockets was also really good," Jase said. "After spending a lot of time on my own, reading books, podcasts, YouTube videos, I really found out that real estate is a great way to compound wealth."
In October, Lachowiez closed on a commercial property in Sydney, Nova Scotia. He is all set to develop a self-storage facility in the spring, which he calls CoastGuard Self Storage.
"I met this guy in the gym who is big in self-storage, and apparently, he runs a multi-million dollar self-storage company," Lachowiez said. "He thought what I was doing was great, but he recommended I look into commercial real estate and self-storage."
Lachowiez knew he wanted to work for himself and be his own boss; after extensive research, he figured Ontario would be too expensive and less lucrative.
Nova Scotia, however, seemed to be a spot that was growing and much more affordable. Lachowiez found a piece of land (see below) and knew it would be the land of opportunity for a self-storage facility.
"This was no easy process over the past year," Jase said. "Finding land, market analysis, organizing contractors, presenting a 30-page business plan to the bank for financing, creating the brand and marketing, etc."
"While that project is going on, I am currently pursuing my real estate licence," he continued. "And I'm producing educational content on my social media pages. Once my licence is completed, I plan to start selling commercial real estate."
Lachowiez shares his lessons on TikTok and YouTube in hopes of awakening people to the possibilities that are out there for real estate investors.
Tim Jackson, lecturer at the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business, says that every generation has a select group of individuals who pursue entrepreneurship instead of "the traditional path."
However, Jackson believes that since access to information nowadays is so abundant, the path of entrepreneurship may stand out even more.
"I do think for someone who says they don’t want to go the traditional route, they can still gain so much information from free online sources," Jackson said. "One of the things we broadly need to do in the country is make post-secondary education accessible to everyone," he continued.
But still, Jackson argues, "One of the advantages you have today is the access to information and the access to learning."