Canadians Fleeing to U.S. Hits 10-Year High (Uncut) 03-04-2025

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So scan the QR code right here on the screen or there’s a link below in the video description. Now let’s get to today’s video. The number of Canadians fleeing Canada for the United States has hit a 10-year high.

Why? How can we explain this exodus of Canadians leaving for the U.S. and other countries? Well, here to talk about this phenomena is Matt Pichet. He is known as the fruitful investor. He’s a Canadian real estate investor, agent, and mentor helping now Canadians and Americans find properties in the United States, flipping them and making their dreams come true.

Matt, so happy to have you on the show. I found you because your content kept appearing in my Instagram feed. I thought, I got to get this guy on the show.

I love your stuff. Awesome. Well, thank you for having me on.

So I just want to give folks a little bit of your background. You’re a fellow Canadian like myself. You’re from Kitchener.

You’re now looking to move full-time to the United States. You work in the United States, but just tell us a little bit about your background. I read you were a carpenter running a renovation business, and now you’ve just built this whole new empire of real estate.

Tell us a little bit about your journey here. Yeah. So my dad was a carpenter.

His dad was a carpenter. So after high school, I just kind of fell into it, also became a carpenter, finished my apprenticeship, and then started my own business renovating properties strictly for investors. I like to work with investors more.

It’s just kind of the way I think. And then as I was helping these investors renovate their properties, they kept saying, Matt, I wish you were a realtor. The realtors I’m working with don’t really understand investing, cashflow.

You already know all that. You know construction. You should be a realtor.

And I thought, well, I don’t want to be a carpenter forever, obviously. So I got my realtor license in like four months back then when you could. Became a realtor, also specializing with investors, and then started investing myself.

We bought 150 properties, mostly all in Kitchener-Waterloo for myself and my partners. And yeah, now we’re transitioning down to the US. Wow.

So you are one of the Canadians that made the exodus from Canada to the US. I know you’ve been covering this trend. Obviously, economic factors are probably the number one issue, but why don’t you highlight for us some of the reasons that you think so many Canadians are looking to get out? Yeah.

Number one, first and foremost, is taxes. That’s always the big complaint. When you start building your business and making more money, and you start paying a crazy amount of taxes, 50% plus, you kind of start thinking there has to be a better way.

So I think that’s the first one for most investors, most builders, people building in real estate, taxes. Second is just regulation, right? It takes forever to build a house, to get a permit. It takes like 18 months to get a shovel in the ground.

It’s just crazy. Whereas here in the US, in Florida where I am right now, you can literally get a permit approved in two to four weeks. You’re good to dig.

You’re good to pour the foundation. It costs way less, right? To get a permit to build a house in Kitchener, Ontario, for example, is about $180,000 before you even put a shovel in the ground. It’s just not like that in the US.

And that’s part of the housing crisis. And we can go deep on that, but that’s part of the problem in Canada, right? So for all those reasons, that’s kind of why Canadians are, I think, starting to look at the US more. Yeah.

About the housing bubble, I mean, look, we’ve been talking about if we focus on Toronto, Vancouver, how long have we been saying, oh, the prices have to come down, the bubble has to pop, and yet it’s not happening. We can talk about the various reasons as to why. I mean, what do you see? What’s the future you see for housing in Canada right now? Yeah.

I just see it to keep going up. I personally think we’re just entering the next cycle of real estate, and that’s going to go up. And there’s many reasons for that.

The biggest reason that I think most people don’t talk about is the socioeconomic factor of millennials. We’re the biggest generation, and we all want to buy homes right now. We all want to get out from mom’s basement and own a home.

So you have this giant sector of the economy who wants to buy a home. So when those rates start coming down, what do you think millennials are going to do? They’re all going to buy homes, and that’s most likely not going to bring prices down. There’s not enough supply.

So is that why it’s so much more pronounced in Canada than in the United States? Because we don’t have the supply, and with all the, obviously, the talk of the immigration in Canada, there’s just not enough homes to go around. So it’s like, when are people ever going to be able to buy a house? It’s just going to get harder and harder. It’s awful.

But I don’t think there’s going to be any relief anytime soon other than interest rates coming down, making it more affordable on a monthly basis. But price-wise, they’re going to keep going up. So what areas do you like in the United States? Where are you finding that there is the best opportunity right now? Yeah.

So we typically like the more southern states, the red states. So Texas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina. These are more landlord-friendly states.

You have more rights as a landlord. Building permits are issued faster. It seems like these states want you to come.

They want your business, whereas in Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, London, Ontario, all these places, they don’t want your business. It takes forever to get a permit. It costs so much money.

Builders want to build, but the numbers just don’t make sense, whereas they make more sense here. I mean, how difficult is it for, I mean, I just had a, you know, my friend up in Montreal sent me a voice note this morning saying, I guess they just got hit with over a foot of snow, so it just amplifies the whole thing. But she was like, I got to get out.

How do I move to the US? I mean, some folks just feel like it’s just impossible, I mean, to get a green card or a working permit. I mean, is it really that difficult? I would think so. I would say it’s simple, but it’s not easy.

But the fastest way to get your visa to live in the US and build your business is an E-2 visa. That’s the most popular one for investors, for business owners. And to boil it right down, the requirements of that are you have to spend $100,000 on your business and have a clean record, obviously, in Canada.

And that’s pretty much it, honestly. It’s pretty simple to get it. I mean, how do you feel, I mean, you’re looking to move full-time to the US.

I mean, is there anything from Canada that you feel you’re going to miss? Less and less, honestly. Other than the obvious one, family and friends, obviously. But the weather down here is obviously amazing.

Things are cheaper, housing is cheaper, gas is cheaper, food is cheaper. It’s just, at this point, I feel, honestly, a better life, especially for the weather. Now, for someone like me, I’m really big on sunshine and living and being outside.

So that’s a big one for our family, but that’s the obvious one. Look, I know your content has been really blowing up, obviously, with talk of President Trump wanting to adopt Canada, become the 51st state. I mean, a lot of us are just thinking, okay, this is just, obviously, it’s never going to happen.

But seriously, what are your thoughts on that? And what are you hearing from your fellow Canadians? Yeah, so from my audience, it’s obviously a little more biased, a little more business-focused, but we would all love it, obviously, to be part of the US. Now, the odds of Trump buying Canada, like you’re saying, probably highly unlikely. However, more of an economic union, like Europe, that is more likely, and I think that would be a really great idea for both countries.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s an interesting point, and not one that at least Canadian media is covering, because even in the conversations I’ve been having with all my friends up there, they would almost really like to see a union between Canada and the US, like same currency, make it easier to cross the border, but they don’t want to show that, right? Like, obviously, everyone’s proud to be Canadian, and no one has nothing to do with that. It’s just like, can we just make life a little bit easier here? Yeah, that’s the big point.

Like, we don’t want to give up our heritage, our country, but having a union where we can move to Arizona, we can just move to Florida if we want to freely, that would be amazing. And I think a lot of Canadians, I would argue most, would be in favor of that. That’s pretty cool.

Look, I know most of your audience is more conservative leaning. Is that an accurate statement? For sure. I’d say so, yeah.

Okay. So what do you make of what’s going on now in Canada? I mean, it really seemed like the Liberal Party was losing a lot of steam, but now, you know, likely will be Mark Carney leading it. Do you think he could take the lead again? I mean, just when we thought the conservatives were going to come in, what’s your take here? Yeah, it changes so fast every day, but I will say it helped the Liberal Party for sure if Mark Carney wins.

That’s a slam dunk for them. I will say even as a conservative, I like Mark Carney, right? He proved himself as Bank Governor of Canada, Bank Governor of England. He’s got a huge history.

So he would be, in my opinion, a great Prime Minister. I just personally don’t think it should be him right now. I think Canada really needs to turn this ship into a 180 and go in the opposite direction, lower taxes, make it more competitive, bring people to Canada to make jobs.

And I just don’t think Mark Carney is going to do that. So my whole saying is, Mark Carney, come back in eight years. You know, it probably makes more sense.

But right now, I think we need a big change. And Mark Carney is kind of business as usual. Yeah, I mean, especially when it comes to prices, right? I mean, look, groceries in New York City are very expensive.

But then you go into Canada. And it’s like, what happened to grocery prices in Canada? It’s even more. Obviously, why is inflation even double that of what’s happening in the US here? Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot behind the reasoning of that.

But the biggest and most obvious one, I would have to assume it’s carbon tax. Carbon tax makes everything more expensive. When you make gasoline and diesel more expensive, it goes down the whole supply chain, right? The farmer is going to cost more.

The grocery is going to pass that cost on to the customer. So that carbon tax is really ruining Canada. And again, at a time when the US does not have a carbon tax.

So it’s making Canada even less competitive. It’s crazy. Matt, so just what has demand been like? What are you seeing in terms of outreach? Is it mostly from Canadians who want properties in the US? Is it Americans? What’s your sense? Yeah, for my audience, I would say it’s 75%, 80% Canadians who are literally blowing up my phone every day.

How do I get out of here? I want to get out of here. How? Teach me how to get the E2 visa. I want to leave.

It’s pretty crazy. So then you’re finding properties for them that are undervalued? Yeah. So I’m essentially teaching them to do what we do, which is build a real estate investing business, to build the whole framework of marketing, to find sellers who want to sell you their properties at a discount, so you can buy them, renovate them, sell them, kind of like what you see on HGTV.

We’re teaching people how to do that. We’re teaching them how to fix themselves and build a business. Are they in totally remote areas? I mean, say if someone wants to move down with a family and wants to be in a school district.

I mean, are there still like golden opportunities? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I would say the opportunities in America for real estate are so much more just because their culture and economy about business is way different.

I always kind of joke. It’s not really a joke, but it’s a good thing. In Canada, it’s really hard to lose your home and go bankrupt.

That’s why our foreclosure rate in Canada is 0.15% nationally, which is basically zero. Almost nobody loses their house. Whereas in America, it’s 1% to 2% at any given time, thousands of times more.

And when you have population of 380 million, there’s more people that want to sell their house quickly in exchange for convenience. So they’ll sell it lower, where you can’t do that in Canada. So is that a positive, Matt, that there is a greater safety net in Canada? It is a positive that Canada is a more stable economy.

I always admit that. If you’re a middle-class person, you just want to live a regular life, Canada is a great option, probably the better option. But if you’re a business person, you want to grow and scale and rise above middle-class, America is definitely the better place for that.

But America is more of a sink or swim economy. It just is. There’s less safety nets.

So that’s good and bad. Interesting. It’s a sink or swim economy.

Final point, I always love asking people this who have lived in Canada and the US, the healthcare system, right? We’re taxed higher in Canada, we get the free healthcare. Do you prefer to be taxed lower and you’re paying for a lot for insurance, but then you’re getting service? Which is the better option for you? I would personally prefer pay less taxes and let me handle paying for my insurance. I get to choose the doctors I want or the plan that I want.

And I guess there’s no perfect answer, but in Canada, we do pay significantly higher taxes. And let’s be real, the healthcare system is not good in Canada. We recently had to go to the emergency with our son for an incident and we sat there for 10 hours.

Unbelievable. Yes, that happens in America too, but I feel a lot less. We’ve had to go to smaller clinics in America with our son for other things.

And we were seen immediately, in and out, with medication, gone. In Canada, we would have been there 12 hours. How old’s your son, Matt? I was going to ask- He’s three now.

He’s three. And do you feel that there’s just… I mean, you obviously wanted to play hockey, right? Yeah, of course. Okay.

But do you feel there’s just greater opportunity? I mean, thinking of his future, do you think he’s better off growing up in the US versus Canada right now? Honestly, I really believe he’s probably better off in America. It’s just more opportunity, more access to things. I mean, everything’s here, right? Everything’s here.

Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Hollywood, everything is in America. So there’s just more opportunity here. Wow.

All right. Matt Pichet, for folks who want to find you and learn more, Instagram’s your best bet? Best place, yeah. Matt Pichet on Instagram.

All right. Great speaking with you. I see you will be at a conference with one of our great friends, Robert Kiyosaki.

Yes. Yeah. Can’t wait for that.

Continued success with your business, and we’ll chat soon. Thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me on.

And thanks for watching. We’ll have more great content coming your way, so be sure to stay tuned to The Daniela Kambodin Show. Sign up at danielakombodin.com and subscribe to our YouTube page.

It just keeps us going, folks. That’s it for me. We’ll see you soon.