Seeking Advice on Scaling My Real Estate Portfolio in PEI

[Recko Jean]

Hello everyone,

I'm based in Prince Edward Island, Canada, and my wife and I currently own a duplex apartment where we live in one unit (we've had it for two years). We also own a single-family home with a detached garage and a separate lot that is currently secured with the mortgage of the single-family home (we've owned this for 10 months). We're in the process of releasing the lot from the mortgage, as our plan is to use it as a down payment for a construction loan to build a quadplex on it. Additionally, we're looking to convert the detached garage into a one-bedroom ADU, especially since the bylaws are being amended to allow ADUs on the same lot as a single-family home.

Our goal is to continue building our portfolio with multifamily properties, and I would like to aim for acquiring more than one property per year. I'm seeking advice on how to achieve this goal and would appreciate any guidance on strategies I can implement to make this happen.

Thank you in advance for your insights!

[Stevo Sun]

You'll likely have to go the commercial loan route. Conventional mortgages can't happen at that pace without a significant income (or your rental income is significantly higher than the debt repayments). Since the banks in Canada do not count your rental income at full value, your GDS/TDS ratios will be out of wack as you get more conventional mortgages and at some point you'll be topped out.