Surprises in Thunder Bay, Ontario, CANADA

[Robin Nicholson]

When I first met my husband, he had just purchased his first real estate investment of a 4-plex for $150,000! The housing market was crazy cheap there and you would not think that you could get that great of rent out of the building, however, there was a rental shortage due to the University and College. A lot of rentals were being snatched by them and single professionals and families were unable to find suitable rentals. We were renting a one bedroom unit at $1,100. Also, the housing market finally starting to come up and be on par with the rest of Ontario and when we looked at drawing the equity of the 4-plex to purchase a duplex in Kitchener, ON, we were surprised to find out that the building had almost doubled in evaluation. Of course, we had done extensive work to one of the units. It seems more people have got into the rental game, as we do not get the same amount of responses for vacancies as we once had. 

It was definitely a great buy, even if it was in Thunder Bay, ON!

[Matt Geerts]

Great job. I find it ironic that the house price has risen while the business that it serves has declined.