Words fail us... Toronto's Condo King Brian Lamb's latest sales pitch.

"If you’d rather not eat cat food in your retirement, you’d better invest in condos."

- Developer Brad J. Lamb.

Toronto condo developer Brad Lamb says inadequately funded pension plans and limp RRSP returns will not meet Canadians’ retirement needs. So unless you want to eat cat food in your retirement, you'd better invest in condo's.

Yes, we're not making this up. This is the message Toronto's Condo King has for the masses as he presented a free workshop on real estate investing to some 340 people at The Westin Saturday in Ottawa, as reported in the Ottawa Citizen.

Of course Lamb's development company is constructing the Gotham and SoBa condo towers in Ottawa, which is what brings him there to hold the "free workshop".

His investment advice?

Factoring in inflation, he says that someone retiring 30 years hence will need $2.1 million for a pension of $50,000 a year in today’s dollars.

To get there he recommends you buy, rent and re-sell urban condos in a market that, based on the past 30 years of real estate performance in Ottawa, Lamb believes has nowhere to go over the long term but up.

Lamb’s strategy?

Scrape together $20,000 (that’s your down payment on a small condo that is also your own residence) and using what he called conservative projections of 4% annual growth in real estate values, Lamb says you’re soon able to use the equity in your unit to buy a second one. You rent that out for enough to cover its mortgage, condo fees and other costs and eventually sell it for a profit.

You continue buying, renting and re-selling units — all the while upgrading the one you live in — until you have a portfolio of five rental condos.

Lamb figures it will take you 12 years to do this.

Once you have achieved this nirvana, you then sit on the properties, with your tenants paying off your mortgages, for another 13 years. Twenty-five years after making your initial investment, you have enough assets to retire.  At least according to Lamb.

After the workshop he confided to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper that it annoys him that:

“our education system doesn’t teach (retirement planning)."

Which, presumably, is why Lamb was holding the 'free workshop.' Of course Lamb added:

"Also, it doesn’t hurt that I own properties, and some people (here) will buy some units."

What is that phrase, "past performance is not an indication of future results." Isn't there a valid reason that securities law requires that disclaimer?

You have to wonder if each workshop attendee also received a free bottle of snake oil as they left the seminar with Gotham and SoBa condo brochure in hand?

(hat tip Ben Rabidoux)

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