Confuzzled 20 Yr Old RE Investor!

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Hi,

I am 20, trying to purchase the first of hopefully many properties. I made another post several days ago, but would like to hear from more of you Ontario investors out there.

Looking to do a house hack duplex conversion BRRR in Kitchener or Cambridge, with the ultimate goal of achieving 100+ doors by age 30. A 5% down payment is definitely reasonable, good credit, no debt. Slow trickle of income right now from YT channel and odd jobs, set to ramp up gradually as I get into my electrician apprenticeship which I am starting in September with a local union, pay to start at min. wage for 4 months and up to around $19/hr for the first year, set to increase 10% of journeyman's wage (close to $50/hr) each year.

Here are just some of my many questions, in no particular order:

1. Can I get a mortgage for $600K right now (with or without cosignor?). This seems to be the price of the average bungalow with duplex potential in Waterloo region today, if not higher.

2. Should I avoid big banks (RBC, TD, ScotiaBank, etc.) like the plague in regards to mortgages and instead find a real estate broker specializing in investors? I heard that the banks dole of 2-5 mortgages and then it's difficult to get more, which does not bode well for my real estate empire plans.

3. Should I even attempt to find deals on MLS-based sites like realtor.ca, royallepage, etc? Or are off-market deals the way to go for me as a first time property buyer? Where do I find these 'deals' - door knock, real estate agents, flyers, social media, etc? Keep in mind I am starting from scratch here with no reputation.

4. If I can get a mortgage on the SFH I will need to renovate it so what is a good way to get these funds?

5. There's all this talk about 'analyzing deals', 'running the numbers', but where exactly do I find these numbers? Rents, property tax, utilities, etc. I have tried the free version of Rentometer and looked at the 'stats' section of these RE sites, but doubt the accuracy of this info. Do I find a comp, and call to find the rent?

6. Is it critical to find a real estate agent that is a RE investor themselves? If I want 100+ doors I should probably find a RE agent that has 150 doors in a perfect world, right? Where do I find these people, and why do they work as a RE agent if they are already making tons of cash off their properties?

6. I just saw a property on sale on MLS-based sites. Bungalow in Kitchener, side entrance, possible duplex conversion, list price $450K. It was a fixer upper if I ever saw one: worn floors, wallpaper everywhere, unfinished basement. The agent that wrote the description clearly embraced this fact. Decent area but high ratio of renters/owners. It sold within two days of accepting offers. Won't name the address because I don't want to cross any lines here. Would you suspect this property to have had bidding wars and possibly sold for $550-600K? From my limited experience I would guess the reno would have been at least $100K. The driveway didn't seem close to 6.5m wide so not sure how that could have made to meet the requirements for a duplex.

7. Do you recommend splitting hydro meters? Mat Piche on YT says that he always does this, and if I recall correctly that it costs approx. $5K.

I do realize these are pretty loaded questions but hopefully some folks out there can give me some good insight nonetheless :)

Thanks,

Lucas