Need newbie Advice for poss. student rental in S. Ontario Canada

[Ralph Noack]

Good Morning BP. Excited newbie here. Looking for any advice on this project. This is in Brantford, Ontario.  A house came up, and they're asking $142,900. Its a Semi-detached home 3 bedrooms & one bathroom. It seems like there's enough room in the basement for a 4th bedroom & possibly another bathroom. It has been used as a rental. The tenant moved out yesterday. The house has only had one viewing because the tenant wouldn't let anyone in & now she's out.

"It will need work on the inside" says the listing agent. No other info given. The roof, furnace, windows, copper piping &  100 Amp service w/breakers are newer (don't know if that includes wiring throughout).

The house is about 15 minute walk to the university area. Brantford is booming as a university city. They are expecting 10,000 student increase in the next 5 years.

The listing agent expects the house to go quickly ("within days, if not hours" he says. Could just be hype, but there are NOT a lot of other houses available in Brantford & this one is very cheap!)

I can re-hab myself for the most part (I own a roofing company & know enough about construction), & I have flipped a house a few yrs. back. So, that's not the part I'm worried about. More interested in how to price this out. I would assume there's demand & this is cheap. In southern Ontario, ridiculous bidding wars are happening all the time. But if it needs that much work I don't know how to approach the pricing.

Plans could be to keep it & rent it out and thus benefit from quickly rising house values in the long term as well, or to re-hab it & sell it. 

Note: I have not run any numbers on it yet. I have not been inside yet. I'm going  to get inside this morning.

Anything is helpful. Thanks.