Edmonton, AB investor would LOVE your advice!!

[Pierre Daigle]

Hello fellow investors!

I’m wondering if you’d allow me to show some audacity and selfishness and explain the situation in which I find myself in hopes you’d critique it and/or perhaps offer some advice. I’m a bit lost at the moment and would greatly appreciate your input!

Situation: I’m a new investor who lives in Edmonton, AB, Canada. I have two rental properties and am looking to immediately purchase one or two others in this buyer’s market. I just graduated with an MBA but chose to work as an assistant to a very successful agent in Edmonton to further my real estate knowledge.

The good: My wife and I have approx $200K available to invest in real estate. The bad: We just completed some school, don’t yet make a significant income, and don’t have a solid 2yrs of employment history (low qualifying ability).

I am a big fan of the BRRR strategy though I've never attempted it. My plan was to head to PEI and rehab two triplexes but that plan was scrapped for the position with the Edmonton agent.

From what I can see, property prices in Edmonton are quite high to perform a BRRR (compared to say, Brantford or PEI) and I'm not sure if I'm ready to allocate all of our available resources to a single BRRR (assuming we can't secure financing up front or upon refi.)

We‘ve been preapproved for a $500K CMHC mortgage secured through a co-signer. My plan was to steal a relatively new property at a great price and secure CMHC with little down as a set-and-forget plan, which would "sit in the background" and only require $25K upfront. I then planned to get more aggressive with the rest of the funds we have available (maybe a BRRR?). That said, my gut says that this may be a waste of financing and limit my upside by forgoing rich profit centres such as sweat equity at rehab. (I do now have good contractor contacts through the agent I work for should I decide to pull off a rehab.)

What do u think!? Would this CMHC-buy be a bad move? Taking into account my available cash but my low qualifying ability and Edmonton's high price point (and relatively low rent - I think you'd be very lucky to get a 1% rent-to-cost), what would you do in my situation? Would you look out of province? Look for seller financed opportunities? Partner up? BRRR something in Edmonton?

PS: Would anyone be interested in meeting fellow R.E. investors in Edmonton to share knowledge, to network and to seek out further opportunities together? (I’m also willing to trade my time and bust my *** for anyone out there who is seeking help but offering up a related educational opportunity.)

Thank you so much for your time!

Pierre :-)