Canadian equivalent of Listsource

[Ramakanth Gade]

Hi Guys,

My name is Ramakanth Gade. For your convenience you can call me Ram. I am originally from India but living in Vancouver for the last 1.5 years (just finished my MBA). I am new to real estate investing and trying to learn more about real estate. I red some books and came to an opinion that real estate is the best way to generate passive income and retire early. Luckily I got in touch with a Real Estate Investor who agreed to be my mentor and told me to start by generating leads for her Lease Purchasing company. She told me to try with Craigslist first. Well, I got some few responses by sending emails to sellers on Craigslist but nothing worked. While browsing through BiggerPockets, I got to know about "Listsource" for generating leads list but it is restricted to only USA. Now my questions are:
1) Can someone suggest me some websites that are Canadian equivalent to Listsource so that I can get a list of absentee owners or Foreclosures?
2) Are there any other free online sources where I can post my ads or contact motivated sellers other than Craigslist?
3) Are there other ways (online and free or for minimal amount) where I can find email IDs of motivated sellers rather than only addresses for sending the post cards (I know post cards work very well but just thinking if there is some other way)?
4) People who do lease purchasing, can you please suggest me what is the best way to get motivated sellers for Lease Purchasing of their property?
Sorry for the long post. I wish I can keep it short :)

[Roy N.]

Ram:

I'll attempt to answer your questions, but will have to return to further elaborate on a couple:

Originally posted by @Ramakanth Gade:

Hi Guys,

Foreclosures, especially those which are sold significantly below market, are not as common in {many/most parts of} Canada due to a few factors, but primary amongst them is the lenders fiducial duty to seek fair market value and the preference of the 'A' lenders to use Power of Sale over foreclosure. I have been told that foreclosure is still performed routinely in some jurisdictions (e.g. Alberta), but the requirement to seek FMV still applies.

There are a few Canadian websites which "claim" to provide lists of foreclosed properties and charge a monthly fee for access. Our examination of these has indicated - for our part of the country at least - they contain no information one cannot find elsewhere for free (mostly on MLS or from the lenders themselves).

In our efforts to identify absentee owners in our areas, we have found a subscription to the land registry system is required which has a cost. Being buy/fix-and-hold investors we have insufficient acquisition volume to justify this cost, so we usually resort to canvassing neighbours and/or bird dogs.

It has been our experience that Kijiji has more traction in most parts of Canada than Craig's list {the opposite of their relationship in the U.S.A.}, so you should be posting there.

Not to my knowledge, but this is a question better addressed by some of the {few} Canadian wholesalers present here. Perhaps @Gary McGowan could provide the information you seek. Note that Canadian privacy laws are not conducive to businesses selling such lists of information.

Here, I presume you are talking about a {Master} Lease of the property with a separate Option to Purchase agreement? I have only found traction with that approach in residential properties in two situations:

1. A listed property that is not moving;
2. An owner who is nearing retirement, but not quite ready to sell. Similarly we have used purchase options with elderly owner occupants who are not quite ready to downsize.