Scott McGillivray at the Loyalist College Speaker Series. Photo by Hailey MacDonald
By: Hailey MacDonald
BELLEVILLE – HGTV star and home renovation expert Scott McGillivray talked investments, renovations and real estate during a speech at Loyalist College on Oct. 9.
About 80 people were in attendance for the speech, made up of students, Loyalist College staff and members of the community.
Before the speech began, QNet News had the opportunity to speak to audience members waiting to listen to McGillivray.
Two teachers in the Belleville area, Andrea Toner and Mary Spiropoulos, both own rental properties and thought it would be interesting to listen to the renowned property expert.
“We’re interested to see if he has any ideas as far as renovating goes,” Spiropoulos said.
“Maybe something that can help us with our own rentals.”
Toner said given she owns vacation properties, her favourite show of McGillivray’s is “Scott’s Vacation House Rules” and was keen on learning more on the topic.
When McGillivray hit the stage, he started his speech by talking about his time at university.
Prior to his time on television, McGillivray attended the University of Guelph and earned a degree in Commerce.
After a last minute renting fall-out with a landlord in his third year of university, McGillivray and his roommates were left to find a house quickly.
McGillivray was advised by a realtor to buy a home instead of renting during the early 2000’s, which he was hesitant about at first, but ultimately agreed to do.
Using his home renovation and commerce skills, he purchased a home and rented it out to his friends to live alongside him.
“Buying that first property was way outside of my comfort zone,” McGillivray said.
“I thought ‘I want to be making $100,000 a year’, so I went on a mission to increase my portfolio, to rent enough properties to make me $100,000 a year, then I couldn’t stop, I was on a roll,” he continued.
“By the age of 25, I owned 25 student rental properties.”
McGillivray said that while he was working as an entrepreneur in his early twenties, he wasn’t initially making as much money as his friends, but he was happy to be making less working a job he truly enjoyed.
“When you love what you do, you can be excellent at it and grow,” he said.
“When my friends went from $60,000 to $63,000, I had quadrupled their salary.”
His television career started when a Toronto-based series needed a last minute contractor to appear on the show to finish a tight deadline.
After spending time on that series for approximately 18 months, he was offered his own show.
When McGillivray pitched the idea of doing a series involving the real estate and finance side of renovations, it wasn’t well-accepted.
“They told me no one wants to watch that boring financial stuff, they just want to see the before and after.” he said.
McGillivray’s series, ‘Income Property’ then aired in over 30 international markets and has won four Canadian Screen Awards.
McGillivray left the audience with the advice of it won’t always be easy working as an entrepreneur, but continuously perfecting your craft and learning from people with prior experience goes a long way.
After McGillivray’s speech, QNet News had the opportunity to speak to another audience member, Mary-Jo Radford.
Radford said she has an interest in home renovation and real estate, which is what brought her out to listen to McGillivray.
When asked on her thoughts about the speech, Radford appreciated McGillivray’s transparency on the hardships that can come with working in the skilled trades.
“It was really informative,” Radford said.
“It was interesting to hear his perspective on the good and the bad. Everybody likes to tell you the good things, not necessarily the bad things, especially when you know there’s a shortage of trades, it’s important for anybody who’s thinking about that as a career, I think it’s really important they hear both sides of the story.”
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