Should I Buy Investment Property If My Personal Is Underwater?

[Marianne Lopez-Henthorn]

My goal is to purchase my first real estate investment property within 1 year.

I have a well-paying job, good credit, no consumer debt (just my car, which I'm working to pay off), and I am working on a 20% downpayment + rehab costs.

BUT....

- I purchased my current home (apartment) 4 years ago. Since then it has dropped $100k in value. Paid $230k (Canadian - $CAD) and it's now worth about $130k. I owe about $170k. I live in a small town entirely dependant on oil, and RE prices have plummeted for everyone since 2014. But my well-paying job is here, so i riding it out. I suspect house prices to continue to decrease.

- I own a property with my sister in another city. My parents live there and we pay their mortgage, because they don't have enough saved for retirement and because they mean the world to me. Paid $400k, about $360k owing, probably worth $380k now. Prices have cooled in this area too, but it's in a major city, so hopefully it will stabilize in a few years.

- my job is stable, but I make almost half my income in overtime. With oil prices low, and consumption of oil low, we've cut back on overtime. Meaning I'll make much less this year than the past 4 years, if we keep going down this path.

SHOULD I...

- continue on my search for investment properties out of my town, keep working towards building a REI portfolio (although it may take longer to do so with overtime cut back

OR

- buy a townhouse here for $130k, rent out 1 or 2 bedrooms and house hack. (Keep in mind, I live in a 1 trick pony town) Rent out my apartment which will almost cover my apartment monthly expenses.

OR

- none of the above/some other creative solution

Ps: I live in Canada, so not all strategies that work in the States work here, too.

THANKS IN ADVANCE!!

[Juan Pardo]

Originally posted by @Marianne Lopez-Henthorn:

@Juan Pardo you're totally right about house prices being high. I'm waiting for the impending drop in prices when foreclosures hit the market. Granted, that may come with higher interest rates. In the meantime, I'm saving as much as I can, trying to decrease expenses, and paying off our last remaining debt - my car (other than mortgages). Once I have the money I want to have for buying a house (about $50k), I'll reevaluate where I'm at I guess.

I think it is a big mistake to rely on cheap borrowing to make shaky investments, or even investments that, as of today, seem to cash-flow and look good on paper for the short - medium term. The analysis to purchase a property has to be deeper. One needs to know the market well, how that property is specific in that market, what makes it different from properties around, the potential for appreciation, and also historical prices, as it happens with stocks in the stock market. Debt plays a role in this game, and debt can mean opportunity but also leverage (just as futures over an index are leveraged).

Cheap interest rates come at a cost to pay, a much higher property price.

I have been around enough to know what a distressed market looks like, and prices can just plummet as they did after 2008. Prices did fall a lot.

Even with higher interest rates, it pays off waiting to buy properties at prices that can fall 30 - 50% from today's prices.