A few years ago, I was living in a small city in Montreal’s suburbs. This city was recently booming since there wasn’t much land available for new construction nearbyMontrealand one of the only spot remaining to buy a decent house at a fair price is where I used to live. It was a very nice city only 25 minutes away from downtown. The city is situated right beside 2 highways which makes it quite accessible. Near the highway exit going towards this city, there was commercial land for sale. The land was right on a corner and it was the first spot before entering the city (or last spot before leaving for the highway). I thought to myself: I should buy this land and build a Tim Horton’s. For US readers, Tim Horton’s is almost as popular as Starbucks in Canada. Mind you Starbucks coffee is a lot better than Tim’s! The place was perfect for a last stop for a coffee before hitting the road. It was also the right time as we were seeing new houses blooming all over the place.
Here’s the catch.
The land was $500K, the Tim Horton’s was another $500K and at 26 with barely 20K in my pocket… I was frustrated because I was convinced I had a great idea but was short on money. For me, it was obvious that we could make money from this commercial spot… but we needed money to make money. What was even more frustrating is that a year after I had my idea of buying the land to build a Tim Horton’s, someone else did buy the land… and did built a Timmy’s on it! I don’t have to tell you that this coffee shop is making a lot of money right now…
