brrrr questions in Canada

[Dustin Twin]

Hello, I am an investor, new to real estate, and I have a few questions that I haven't seen answered here in the forums yet (apologies if I missed things, I haven't read everything yet).  My questions mainly pertain to Canadian investing and the differences in a few areas.  Do the calculators, specifically the brrrr calculator, totally translate and apply to canadian real estate transactions?  And in the podcast and in other places I keep hearing people say they get hard money lenders or put up their own capital or some other form of financing to originally purchase and reno a house and then refi with a traditional lender.  Is this the same for folks brrrring in canada?  If so, what are the non-traditional financing options?  I kind of got the impression from an investor on youtube that he bought through the bank and then refi-ed through the bank as well.  

Would you all suggest the calculators here to run numbers on deals, or any suggestions on other tools that might apply more specifically to canada?  I've set the goal of my first two deals in 2019 and I'm looking to brrrr or flip and try to get the most out of the capital that I'm starting with.  I will be investing in Edmonton and/or surrounding area, If you are from the area send me a message if you want to chat about our market or our hockey team thats teetering on irrelevancy at the moment.  Been getting a lot of great info from the podcasts and hope to start taking part in the discussions.  Also, for any canadians, is it worth it to get a pro membership on BP, i'm definitely considering it just that most of the perks seem to definitely be restricted to south of the border.  Thanks again.

[Roy N.]

@Dustin Twin

The BP calculators are U.S.A. centric.  You can use them to compare various properties, but their results will be off w/r to purchasing and financing real estate in Canada:  taxes and {residential} mortgage financing are different here.

The strategy to acquire a property via a cash purchase or off-market (private money or hard-money) financing, then (re)financing through a conventional lender once it has been renovated/retrofitted works just fine in Canada.  That said, you will find hard-money lenders are not as common and some of the ones you may find are not terribly regulated (caveat emptor).   Other options include: 

a) to finance the property at purchase through a conventional lender (i.e. bank, credit union) using a variable-rate product (less of a penalty when you refinance) and then re-finance the property following renovations.   Unlike parts of the U.S.A., there is no minimum holding period before refinancing ... though many lenders have their own internal guidelines; or 

b) on residential properties you can obtain "purchase + improvement" financing where the lender will underwrite a mortgage on the property plus an amount to fund improvements (typically no more than 15-20%) to the property.   You will typically need to submit quotes for the improvements when you apply for the mortgage and those funds will be held-back until the work is completed.

I would suggest that you come to know and understand the process and mathematics behind evaluating a deal and projecting it's "after repair value", then develop your own spreadsheet - or, as we have done, software tools - to facilitate your analysis.   By thoroughly understanding the underlaying principals, rather than "plugging" numbers into a web-form or spreadsheet created by someone else, you will better recognize good from bad deals (garbage-in / garbage-out).