Need help with finances..

[Sean Lefort]

I'm going to give you my situation and would like some feedback. I'm 23 years old, residing in Toronto, graduating in April, and have intentions of being a property investor with a good friend of mine. We will have no other responsibilities come April, and our plan is to begin by flipping houses, dumping profits into bigger flips. Then once we have a greater working capital we'll have more options. We're just not totally interested in managing property just quite yet.

I've now read a few books on both general property management and flipping, and feel like I have about as much knowledge as anyone can possibly have, without any experience (which I totally understand, really isn't that much..) I feel ready to attack a project, except for the area of finances. We are in a totally different situation than the people who these books are aimed towards. Neither of us will have any "taxable" cashflow with which to approach mortgage brokers with, as any money I've made the past 3 years has been from poker (non-taxable, treated as a windfall in Canada). I have ~$350k tied up in mutual funds, and ~$100k liquid cash in money markets put away for the first flip. I would think purchasing the first house to avoid mortgage payments altogether would be optimal, but I would really like to keep that other money put away and "start small" like anyone else just starting out. The last thing I want to do is get ahead of my learning curve just because I have the finances. So in summary, I'm terrified to approach a mortgage broker. I really have no idea how to go about it other than setting up a meeting, dressing nicely, and having documents showing my assets.

Any tips on any other areas would be greatly appreciated.