All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

I was reading up how Canadians can buy real-estate in the US and I was wondering if you can do the same thing in another country.  Such as making investments in the UK, China, Japan, Australia, etc?

If that's possible, would it matter where I live when having investments in foreign countries?  Such as, if I lived in Canada and had properties in the UK, but then I decided to live in China for a few years, would moving to another country affect my foreign properties?

@Roy N.@Samuel Sedore

Very interesting, I was focusing so much on craigslist that I actually forgot about kijiji!  Doing a comparison of the two for Winnipeg rental units, kijiji has WAY more traffic.  

Craigslist = 98 posts over the span of a few months, so half of them are outdated.

Kijiji = 1316 posts on a daily basis.  You can click on page 10 and the posts are only 4 days old.

As for postlets, I found out that it's a service only for the U.S.  Like @Michael Henry said, the fact that postlets automatically posts your property on multiple MLS, makes manually uploading to craigslist pale in comparison. I think if I ever do business in the states, I would just use postlets and be done with it.

I was reading up on Section 8's in the U.S and subsidy housing in Canada and was wondering if there were any organizations like these that provide senior citizen tenants?  From what I can tell, these programs provide housing for tenants who're either disabled or earn low income.  Is there such a thing?  Any notable example programs or organizations?

For example, I got a property valued at $100,000, produces $500 of positive cashflow.  Over a few years, it depreciates by 20% and the property's valued at $80,000.  Would the amount of rent decrease as well?

Also say if it appreciates by 20% and it's now valued at $120,000.  Would the rent amount increase in this case?

I'm not sure if this is correct, but is the only thing that doesn't get affected is the monthly mortgage?  Would other expenses like insurance, utilities, etc, decrease or increase depending if the property's value depreciates or appreciates?

Wow thanks for the answers guys!  I'm really glad that learning how to do this isn't useless in the end.

So in summary, you can copy/paste html code and pictures in your craigslist ads, but you can no longer post embed videos.

@Nick Versetto@Lawrence Siers

I'm still in the learning stage for REI, so I haven't looked into property management software yet, but it does pretty useful. Is cozy.co still U.S only? I checked this blog post here, and they said that any Canadian cozy.co is a scam and should be avoided.  The blog post is also a year old, so I'm not sure if anything has changed since then.

I've been reading up about posting postlet ads on craigslist and I can't seem to get a concrete answer on this topic.  From what I understand, craigslist bans ads with html code, software/websites to post for you(automated uploads), and any ad that contains code with postlets.com.  

So is it just not possible then?  Is the only way to post an ad of your property is to do it manually?  Is there really no software online that allows you doll up your craigslist ads?  Are we all doomed to have bland white ads that look like everyone else's?

For example, you have a person who took out a mortgage of $10,000 for a property.  He continues to pay the monthly mortgage but stops at $5000 and the property is foreclosed.  I don't know anything about the process, but if I bought that property, would I only have to pay the $5000 worth of mortgage instead of $10,000?

If this is true, if the "leftover mortgage" was $1500, and I bought the property, I would only have to pay off that $1500 mortgage instead of $10,000?

Hi Hector, it's been 2 months since you've last posted and I see this is your only post, so I hope you didn't give up. I'm also trying to figure out all the hoopla that is REI, so I'm only a little bit ahead of where you are right now.

Here's my suggestions...

1)  Learn and complete everything that's in the Ultimate beginner's guide to REI.  The 2 most crucial things are your business plan and your power team.  Some things in the business plan will only be figured out once you start doing deals, as well as your power team, but a majority of it should be complete.

2) Learn the language. The terminology and definitions you'll find in REI is 100% necessary to have. At first I thought I should get a big list of all terms and definitions in REI and learn 3 words a day, but it's like trying to do that with a dictionary. There's almost 800 words I could learn in REI, according to investopedia, and that will take forever.  Instead, I'll build a general/broad list of terms and definitions that every REI should know and then another list for topics in my business plan.  Although I won't learn everything I need to learn before I start my REI, the rest will be learned as I go.

3)  Listen to the podcasts.  Even if the podcast is complete UNRELATED to your interests, you'll still learn something useful.  I'm not interested in commercial property, yet I learned something invaluable.  Seeing how there's over 150 podcasts as I type this, you'll have the potential to learn 150 invaluable things, while you're doing chores, driving a long distance, etc.

4)  Participate in the forums.  You might feel like you don't know anything, but you might know something that someone else doesn't, and vice versa.  Not only is a good way to connect with people and building a presence in the community, but it allows you to reinforce information you've learned.  Like the learning pyramid, the best form of learning is by teaching another because giving advice and insight on a topic can be similar to teaching.  More specifically to questions like yours who ask how to get started, it helps me reflect on everything that I've done and everything that I'm going to do.

Hope this helps!

What questions can you ask a seller that makes you know they're a motivated seller?  All I can think to ask is why they're selling their property and what their financial situation is, but what else is there?  Are there any other common similarities that most motivated sellers have besides wanting to sell?

Thanks for the interesting answers guys!  I kept hearing about how investing in the closest market was the best thing to do, but it makes sense that if there's nothing that fits your criteria, you're going to look elsewhere. 

It's also interesting to hear more and more about what realtors can do for you.  It blows me away that, if I tell them my criteria, they can help me find markets and property that fit my criteria.  It might be small, but to me it's like looking for specific fish in the entire Atlantic ocean and all I have to do is tell them, and BAM I get my fish.  That's just incredible!

@Joe Villeneuve

Just a curious question.  The way I understand it, is that a real-estate market is where most real-estate property are grouped together because of their similarities.  So then most of the property of Georgia are grouped together based of their similarities and their similarities are different than the other states.  What about the entire country's market?  Even though those 2 states are different, they must have similarities with each other if they're part of the U.S. market.  What's that common factor they all share?