How to do Comparables in Canada?

Question

I'm struggling to figure out how to find recent sale prices of homes nearby.

Is anything like zillow available in Canada?

I am living in Montreal.

Roy N. · Answer

@Cory S.

Depending on your purpose for pursuing a property - buy and hold, flip, wholesaling, etc - you will need/want to know the comparable sales prices at a different point in your analysis.

We are buy-and-hold investors.  As such, my initial analysis is usually to determine if a property does, or could, produce a sufficient level of net income - and cash-flow after financing.  We then determine the amount we would be willing to pay for that cash-flow.  If the ask price is in the ballpark, we would proceed to pull comps for the purposes of draughting an offer and negotiating.

If you are flipping or wholesaling properties, then your margins are more tightly coupled to the After Repair Value (ARV) of the property and you will want neighbourhood comps early on so you can establish an exit price and work backwards from there to your purchase.

I am not aware of a Buyers Brokerage Agreement being mandatory in any part of the country.  We have never signed one, nor would we.  On the same hand, if we begin a property search with a real estate agent, we will conclude the purchase through her/him, provided they are performing.  If the agent is not performing, we may sever our working relationship during the search ... if the agent helped to find the property, but is not performing during the negotiations and diligence, we will conclude the transaction, but would not use them again.

Private purchases are a different matter.  We would not bring our real estate agent in on private deals we source ourselves, but if we needed her/him to pull neighbourhood comps, I have no hesitation to ask.  We may pay them a fee for their time, but more often then not, they'll pull the comps at no charge knowing we will be purchasing more properties through them in the future.

Roy N. · Answer

Having a realtor on your team is very good for this, and other reasons.

Another avenue is via the tax accessor.  In many provinces the most recent sales prices of any property, along with the property tax assessment, are available on-line.  In some places, like NB & NS, this information is freely available, in others, like ON, you need to purchase the information.

Raphaël Paquette · Answer

Redfin doesn't offer services in Montréal, Québec, Canada.Though it does in Montreal, Wisconsin, USA.Good luck finding partners Mr. Sperling :)

Amir Sperling · Answer

Redfin is great for comps. Go to the filter and click ‘sold’. Make sure you’re only looking in the last month as it defaults to 3. In the market, something that sold 3 months ago might as well be 3 years ago.

As a Mortgage Agent I’m able to access a report called Purview from the land registry. It shows who owns the property, mortgages on the property, equity, estimated value (the actual value used by lenders in many cases), and comps. It’s a useful tool for investors I work with.

Raphaël Paquette · Answer

Hi everyone, I realize this is an old thread, but I might have a few (fresher) solutions here.For COMPS:-DuProprio (lets you view houses sold through their service, works best outside of Montreal)-JLR (lets you view properties sold through Centris and some Off-market ones, works better in Montréal)-Le Registre Foncier du Québec (very user UNfriendly, but quite affordable and lots of information)-Mon Prospecteur (VERY user friendly, in addition to including DuProprio's comps function, they pull off-market deals from Le Registre Foncier and present them to you neatly.

For RENTS mkt analysis:-Rent-O-Meter (I find, has insufficient data in Mtl) so...-Zipplex (a province of Québec native, I have found they have excellent data for the Montréal area. Have not tried elsewhere.)-Kijiji & Co. (check out apartment offers in the area)Hope this helps someone down the road! Cheers all :)

Ram Srinivasan · Answer

Along with the comments in this forum, I do believe that if you are dealing with FSBO and are marketing to this segment, having the ability to get comps would be beneficial.

I would def check the property tax value, and also do a quick search of any existing properties for sale - I will then see if there is a big discrepancy between the asking price and the property tax value. This would be give is a decent rule of thumb to estimate a value of a FSBO lead.

Ofcourse, going to a realtor helps, - perhaps you are not using the realtor for that specific deal but you find other ways to add value, i.e. give him referrals etc.

You do have to add value to other people......

Cory S. · Answer

Hi Roy!

I'm not sure how to work the "tag" feature yet, so hopefully this works! Thanks for your reply! Hopefully I have an investor friendly realtor! I guess I'll find out! I don't want to bother her too much and, as you mentioned, only when I plan to make an offer. I guess where I am a little stuck here is that I'm not sure how to figure out the market value of the property without sold properties to use as comparables..? I don't know if I want to buy until I know what I think it's worth right? Or until I know I have negotiating room, which I think comes from knowing the history of the listing and original purchase price - again from the realtor. Perhaps I am just having an hard time seeing how I can make a decision without the information the realtor has! I used to be a realtor a number of years ago and using the information realtors have is how I was taught to evaluate property. It's possible that that training has made it hard for me to wrap my head around any other way of evaluating property, but I can't even think of how else one would go about it. What about in private deals? I wish I didn't completely lose track of what is going on in the market and with property prices... I was just starting to get the hang of it when I had to leave real estate!

Do you have the mandatory Buyer Brokerage Agreement where you are? How would one get around that so they do not have to buy through the realtor all the time but the still realtor feels like it is worth their time to help? Does this just go back to finding one who understands investors?

Sorry for the long message!

Roy N. · Answer

Cory,

If you are working with a real estate agent that is investor friendly, or an investor themselves, as your buyers agent, they will likely have little problem with pulling comps.  When we are looking at residential real estate (1-4 units) we do everything we can to {dis}qualify a property on our own and only ask for sales history and comps when we plan to make an offer.

Cory S. · Answer

Hello all!

If I may ask a question... as a new investor I don't feel extremely confident asking a realtor to bring up solds for me. How often would you ask for such a "favor" when you haven't really done anything for them yet! Ie: bought through them. The search for a good deal can go on for quite sometime!!

Don't they get tired of helping and hoping?

Roy N. · Answer

Victor:

Not quite true for all jurisdictions.  While, if memory serves, in Ontario you must pay for a subscription to access sales prices (and tax assessments?), that is not universally the case.  In New Brunswick and Nova Scotia all recent sales prices - since 2009 in New Brunswick - and tax assessments are available online without charge.

How to do Comparables in Canada?

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