sell SFH to buy 3 condo's?

[Ryan Kenneth]

Guys,

This is my first post and I am over the moon to join this community so thank you for having me!

So, we rent out a 4 bedroom detached house about 45 mins outside of Vancouver, BC, Canada. It has two suites, an upper and a lower. We have 43% equity in it. Before it was a rental we lived there ourselves. During those years we gave it a lot of TLC. We didnt always plan for it to be an eventual rental so every improvement we made was done with the thinking that this may be our forever house and we wanted it to last.

When it was converted to a rental it cash flowed negative by $200 a month but I was ok with this because properties seem to appreciate endlessly in this market and the tenants would be paying down principal and honestly I was just so happy to be able to hold an investment property like this. In the 4 years since its become a rental house we've gotten it to cash flowing neutral and its value has appreciated at 4% per year. I know the house inside and out and have great tenants. Managing it could not be easier. The house is also centrally located and the lot is now zoned for two houses if a developer bought it for that purpose.

However, the rent is about $250 under market for the lower suite and there is a cap on how much it can increase per year to the point where we could never get that number up to where it should be unless that tenant moved out which they likely wont.

The more I hear about opening up new investment opportunities with cash flowing properties the more I'm considering selling it and using the profit to buy something that does actually cash flow. When I ran the numbers we could use the profit from the house sale to buy three, 2 bed, 2 bath condo's nearby. Each would cash flow about 4% ($400) per month. What scares me with condo's is the lack of control over choosing when to sink money into large building upgrades like roof and exterior as that is controlled by the strata (I think thats the same as HOA fees in the States). As well if the monthly strata fee rises due to insurance then my cash flow gets reduced a lot. Alternatively I've considered doing a refi on the house to pull out 100k to buy just one cash flowing condo but the cash flow I'd gain with the condo would only go to subsidizing the increased mortgage on the house and I'd be back to cash flow neutral again.

In short, the house is great for the safe long game but it seems to limit what we can do to really grow in the short term.

I'm very interested in what you guys think!

Ryan

[Jaysen Medhurst]

Hi, @Ryan Kenneth. You've hit on some of the main arguments against investing in condos. There are a couple of other issues to consider. Not sure if they apply to you in Canada as well:

1. Many condo associations limit the percentage of units that can be rentals at any one time.
2. Some also limit how long you can rent them for. For example, I live in a coop and owners are only allowed to rent out their units for 2 years after they have tried to sell them for at least 1 year.

In general, if a property can't cash flow, I recommend selling it. It's one thing to buy only for appreciation, if you have an enormous portfolio, but the way I see it every property is its own small business. The life blood of any business is profit, so if there's no profit...

Finally, on the condos, I'd really like to see your numbers. Is the intention to buy these outright or finance? You wrote, "Each would cash flow about 4% ($400) per month." Can you explain this? 4% of what? Certainly not value or initial investment.

My guess is that it's going to be very difficult to cash flow in an expensive market like yours. As an alternative, consider taking the profit from your current property and using it to purchase a MFR property that can strike a good balance between cash flow and appreciation. Sounds like you could have ~$400k to work with. That puts you in striking distance of a $2MM property, why mess around with a few condos?