All Forum Posts by: Adam Dow

Hey everyone. Slight change of plans... the inaugural PEI Real Estate Investors Group (anyone have a better name suggestion?) will be held June 13 at 7 pm at Upstreet. We have a table reserved for us there. Please RSVP to me directly or just comment on this thread if you are coming so that we can track numbers of attendees. I have been talking to a few others and it seems like there is some interest to get something more formal going, so if you can't make it this time, I am sure this will be a regular occurrence. Thanks!

Hey @Matt DuffyI am looking at Friday, June 7, maybe at 7 pm? Anyone else who is interested, let me know if this date and time works. 

Hey everyone, 

Glad to see a PEI thread has started. I am from Charlottetown and bought my first duplex in 2013. I had a total of 3 duplexes plus my house at one point and then decided to sell two of my duplexes to raise some cash. I am reinvesting those proceeds into my next project which is a 6 unit seniors townhouse in Cornwall. We should be breaking ground any week now. 

I am also working on getting a PEI real estate networking group going. I was thinking we could meet once a month or once a quarter and it could be a good way to meet lenders, investors, brokers, realtors, partners etc. At the very least it's a good excuse to get out for a drink/coffee and learn from everyone else's experience. If anyone here is interested, please let me know!

I am from PEI... great to see other Maritimers on here! Let me know if you are interested in looking at options in the Charlottetown area, lots of potential here right now. Would love to partner up on a larger building. 

Update: I went to the unit today to speak to the tenant and handed him the eviction notice. Here, the local law states that if the tenant pays the rent due within ten days, then it is null and void. The late fees here are capped at 1% of the monthly rent, so in my case I can only charge $8.75 as a late fee, no matter how late they are. He assured me he'd pay Friday. Compared to other provinces in Canada, my province is relatively landlord friendly. I can evict the tenant on the grounds of him continually paying late. In this case he must be out within a month unless he files an appeal (which there is no way he'd win). Thanks everyone for your suggestions. Anxious to see what happens Friday.

I had a tenant who used to pay 4 to 6 months rent as a lump sum. I never had any issues. For me it was a smaller property (duplex) so getting a bigger chunk up front allowed me to make certain purchases without having to use a line of credit as the cash flow on the unit wasn't very high. 

Hi guys, 

I have these tenants who moved in this past June. They seemed like great people and have done a great job with the maintenance of the unit. They painted one room and even planted a flow bed in the front. These were ideal tenants until last month when they could only pay half of September's rent on the first. They said their money got stolen and couldn't pay until two weeks later. So I agreed and was empathetic. Two weeks went by and no rent. They then said it would be paid the following week. That day came and went and nothing received. Finally a few days later I got a payment from them but it was $15 short. I had to ask them for the remaining $15 and when it was all said and done, it took almost the entire month of Sept to collect all the rent. 

Oct 1, yesterday, at 9 am I get an email saying "Hey Adam, rent will be paid Friday. Won't happen again, payday is Friday." As you can see, they didn't even ask permission to pay rent late and didn't even give me any notice rent would be late. In my opinion, emailing me the day of rent due date is unacceptable. Vacancy rates in my area are at 0% (waiting lists everywhere to get in) so I could evict them and not have an issue finding new tenants. So my question is, at what point would you evict these tenants?

Thanks, 

Adam 

@James Syed

The seller is saying total operating expenses are $48959. Income is $122,040 so that gives a 40% expense ratio. Tenants pay all insuite utilities (heat, electricity, wifi, cable, etc). 

The seller is a non-resident and as per the property tax laws here, they pay double the property tax. So if I bought it my total expenses will be less after I adjust for property tax and a few other expenses that won't apply after 2017, I am estimating normalized expenses to be $37,000 including property management, which is a 30% ratio. What do you think James? These numbers seem better than average based on what you provided. 

@Aaron Montague

Thanks Aaron. I am leaning towards a pass at this point after hearing from you guys. 

@Andrew Johnson

Good points. I agree, 5% property management fee is a good deal. Although the turnover is low and the time he spends managing the building is about 10 hours per month, so it works out to be around $60/hour of management labour.  I feel like I could handle it on my own, but it's not that attractive of an investment with the property management fees included. But you are giving me something to think about...Thanks for the input, greatly appreciated.