Meet Ferenc | SCORE Property Group

I believe if you want to partner with someone, you need to get to know them. The video and text below is my story - my history and some of the things that make me tick. It's fairly personal.

I tried to keep it as short as possible while still providing enough information for you to start to know me a little which is hard to do in under 7 minutes, so if there's anything else you want to know about me or the business, just ask. I'm pretty open book.

I was born in the UK in 1966. My mother was from the UK and my father, a former merchant marine turned welder, had defected from Hungary. I was named after him. Ferenc is Hungarian (it's the most common question I get right after "How do you pronounce your name?”).

We moved around a lot in England and, in about grade 2, we moved to Canada and settled in Calgary. Within about a year we had moved to Airdrie and then Hinton where I currently live

While my biological dad was pretty good to us kids, he was an alcoholic and occasionally assaulted my mother. We also were living on an acreage in a house he was building, and because only the basement was built, we lived in the basement, with a sheet of plywood covering the opening to the upstairs and, we had a heater made out of an old propane cylinder with holes cut in it and a tiger torch. I can't believe we didn't die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

And so with all of that, and winter approaching, my mom left my dad and moved into Hinton with us kids.

She ended up working as a cashier at the local Co-op and, because she couldn't afford child care, my brother and I used to hang out with her at the gas bar after school - that's the shack at the left in the picture to the right. Sometimes we'd even help with the daily fuel tank dips. Different times.

I never appreciated at the time how hard it must have been for her and the accommodation the store made to allow us to hang out there. I do now.

Photo graciously provided by Gerry Cook

There was never money for allowance back then, so I started my first business in about grade 4, selling earthworms.

My mom supplied me with the plastic bags and I just put up handmade posters at the local bulletin boards. I provided better worms than the local sporting goods stores and at a cheaper price. Allowance problem solved.

Later on I graduated to a paper route.

And then, when I was between grade 5 and grade 6, my biological father was killed in a car accident. My mom later remarried, and I took my new dad's last name Scobie, which is Scottish.

After that my childhood, was pretty normal. We did vacations and other stuff, and my parents saved and helped put me through the Forest Technology program at NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology).

After graduation, I spent a number of my first years of forestry working seasonal jobs and really had a focus on wildfire (that's me in the blue hard hat when I was a Helitack Leader), but wildfire doesn't happen in the winter so I'd pick up other work.

It was during the fire off-season that I started going to what I'll call a bunch of free 'get-rich quick' seminars where they try and get you to buy their course and I think some of this had to do with the early years of my life.

One of the things I really remember about those seminars was all the old (I was in my 20's) people there that looked scared. I could just see that retirement for them was not going to be what they pictured, and I can still remember thinking that was never going to be me.

So I eventually did end up buying a few courses, and one of the first was a real estate seminar from a man named Raymond Aaron. It was so good, I even ended up going twice. And so I started my real estate-on-the-side career and I did fairly well.

So fast-forward into the early 2000's and I've just married my wife Pat (we met on a wildfire) who, let's just say doesn't share the same entrepreneurial DNA I do, and we've got a new baby on the way and we've just moved and I've taken a new job.

Well back then we were doing our own property management (tenants and toilets) and with everything going on we chose to cash out and sell. All good. I focused on stock investing and did pretty well, in fact that's what most people know me for on the investing side, but my passion and real talent has always been real estate.

So fast forward again to the start of the Covid pandemic and I'm reading (again) Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad - Poor Dad" book and I started talking to Pat about getting back into real estate and she graciously agreed.

And just so I'm not skipping anything, I've also done a few other businesses like network marketing, owned a fishing lodge and had a web business and affiliate marketing business that didn't do so well, but I sure learned a lot. I was very fortunate to join Rich Schefren's program and had him as a business coach for awhile and learned a ton from him.

So today I still work for the Government of Alberta, but I've brought a lot of the business experience into my work and have been recognized numerous times for bringing in things like process management and metrics tools and a focus on efficiency and customer service.

I run the real estate business on the side... at least for now. It will always be a serious business for me but even when I retire from government, it's not going to be full-time...just a serious part-time business.

I think one of the things that really drives me is helping people, especially those I know in government and the natural resource sectors, to enhance their finances. I've taught my stock system to lots of people and have worked with some on real estate ventures.

I was asked recently why I am looking for partners and why I don't just borrow the money to buy properties and a big part of the reason is that ability to enhance other people's lives financially. That Kiyosaki quote I have plastered everywhere, "The moment you make passive income and portfolio income a part of your life, your life will change.", I really do believe it, and I just love seeing others experience that life-changing moment.

Real estate wise - I spend about 15 - 20 hours a week on things like attending weekly sessions with my real estate coach, attending calls with my multi-family mastermind group, networking , analyzing deals, investor relations, reading a pile of economic and real estate reports and all that other stuff that goes with running a successful business.

What else.... I mentioned my wife, Pat...still married to her and have 2 boys and a dog. I love cooking, fly-fishing and scuba diving. Feel free to connect with me on the fishing and diving as well.