All Forum Posts by: Brianne H.

Hello, I am considering investing in a vacation rental and just looking for a little advice. I am a new investor, have done a few flips, and have been a landlord when renting out our basement suite before, but otherwise fairly new to rentals. After the sale of our next flip, we should have enough to be able to purchase a rental, depending on area and amount required as down payment. I am considering several options, but vacation rental is top of my list so far. 

My city is not going to give me the cashflow I'm looking for as purchase price to rent ratios are too high, so I am looking outside my area, which I realize can be more risky and have more challenges. I know of someone who owns 3 units in Cabo, and has done very well with them, so that's where I have started my research, but am open to other areas and suggestions. My primary goal is cashflow, though appreciation would be nice too. I have a few questions that I'm hoping people won't mind answering to give me a clearer picture on vacation rentals. 

Do you invest in vacation rentals? Where are they located? Where are you located?

What challenges have you experienced being an owner from afar?

Have you had issues finding reliable property management, or anyone else? 

How often do you visit your vacation rental? 

How much cash did you put into the property (down payment & any necessary improvements)?

What were your closing costs?

What's the market like in your vacation property area?

If you own a condo and rent it short term, like Airbnb or VRBO, how do you work out getting the keys to and from renters? Same thing with a gated community - how? 

Any pitfalls you can recommend avoiding or being cautious of? 

Have you had any issues renting via Airbnb or VRBO?

What is your vacancy rate like? 

Any other words of wisdom? 

Thanks!

Maybe this is a difference between Canada and US mortgages, but if you had a fixed rate mortgage, why did your payments increase a couple times? Or were those for taxes/insurance and not actually mortgage related? 

Forgot to add all of our properties were found on MLS, and we used a realtor for all. I wouldn't say any of them were screaming good deals, but rather properties that didn't look at great or weren't advertised well that had been sitting on the market for a while, and the sellers were starting to drop their price and/or be more negotiable. Since we're still fairly new investors (and house #2 didn't give us as much profit as hoped for since the market went down quite a bit during the time we owned it) we are trying to stick to properties that we wouldn't mind living in if for some reason we're not able to sell it. So far we've just been doing one at a time until we have enough of a down payment to have 2 properties, which I anticipate having once house #3 sells. However, now that the new mortgage rules are in place, I'm second guessing whether I want 2 flips on the go at once (and if we'd qualify with conventional mortgages) or if I'd rather continue to flip one and look for a rental elsewhere.

These flip properties are actually our principal residence(s). With our first one, we actually weren't intending to flip or start investing. We were just excited to buy our first house, and decided to go with something that needed some work and put a little sweat equity into it ourselves. Once we did the work and the numbers, we decided to sell and do it again. Being that it was our first property, we did make some mistakes, the biggest being not structuring the mortgage properly. We did 5% down and had a 5 year closed @ 3.09%, and when we sold about a year later, interest rates had gone down so we had a mortgage penalty payout of $7200 (!) . We made sure not to make that mistake again, but even though we sort of fumbled through the first one, the place turned out very nice and we walked away with a 5 figure net profit, so it couldn't have been that bad. We learned from our first mortgage mistake and structured the mortgage for our second place as a 5 year closed variable through Scotia, at Prime - 0.6% (which has been ~2.1%). We also were able to port our Genworth premium from house #1 and did 10% down on house #2. We lucked out for house #3 because we were actually able to port our Genworth premium again, and our mortgage, so we had $0 in payout penalties on house #2 (though even if we had to pay it out, it would only have been about $1550, not $7000+). 

Hi, right now I'm on my third flip in Calgary. I did a townhouse in Ranchlands, a detached house with basement suite in Marlborough, and we're currently doing a semi-detached in Woodlands, ready to list this week. 

Hi @Stuart Bartwicki, I am also investing in Calgary, but considering branching out to the US or Mexico. What are you interested in? 

@Account Closed I would be very interested if you found out more info about syndications when you're there next month. I'm sure there are a lot of people like me who are interested but are struggling to be able to pull it off because they don't know all the rules and how to get financing there. 

Hi @Jeanette De Boer, I am a Canadian looking into purchasing a rental in Cabo. I'm still doing my research and trying to find more numbers and stats to analyze before I purchase something. Do you have any additional information that may be beneficial related to costs or things to look for in a rental there? What sort of financing is available for foreigners? What are the average rental prices? Thanks!

Thanks for the replies. @Benjamin Brasher I'm not sure how I'm going to finance it yet. I'm trying to do as much research as I can but this is all new to me. What is your recommendation for financing in Canada vs Mexico? (Paying 100% cash isn't possible, it will have to be financed.) 

What sort of things should I be looking for in a rental property? How feasible is it to do short term vacation rentals (Airbnb & VRBO likely) and have a property manager who is flexible enough to be able to accommodate that, such as key drop offs and pick ups? What is the average costs for property management, cleaning, taxes, etc that I should be using to base my calculations on?

One thing I am struggling with is finding information on vacancy rates on short term rentals, as well as average rent and costs associated. Makes it hard to calculate my ROI when I haven't been able to find any real life examples on paper that I can analyze. This is where I'm hoping a kind soul here might be able to help point me to some real life examples.

Hello, I'm fairly new to bigger pockets and am interested in purchasing a rental property in Mexico, most likely Cabo, within the year, and would like to network with others who may also be investing (or are owners) in the area. I'd love to chat with you and get to know more about the area and the market, as well as laws, mortgage rules, and anything else that might come up if you'll allow me to pick your brain. Thanks!