All Forum Posts by: Cody Hill

Hi Jamie,

Sadly I do not have an answer for your question but I would like to follow this as I am interested myself. I have had some success of fb marketplace and kijiji but not really the same as the above. A useful tool I have found for this area is www.honestdoor.com. 

On a side note I see your a contractor in my area. This year I wanted to try and get away from subbing out my Reno's myself and find a contractor who is capable of quoting and completing projects for me. My bread and butter so far has been adding legal basement suites so ideally someone who is skilled and knows the permitting process behind this. 

Finding someone who invests themselves would give me even more peace of mind. 

Not The greatest for the velocity of your money. Great to have a worry free house with warranty but your money is now trapped there unless you bought it drastically under market value. 

With that being said I actually did fluke out buying my personal residence as a new build. I went with a smaller builder, with a house that was nearly complete, at a time where house's were not selling last year. I was able to get the place for 400k but I needed to do the landscaping. Being my personal residence I did that myself because it was another reason to enjoy the sun. I had a friend buy a very similar suited house 5 doors down (which was less sq ft) for $475k which had me wonder what I could get mine appraised at. Came out to 500k the way it stands with a brand new school going up walking distance away. 

Kind of a fluke with this one but I did a ton of shopping around prior to buying it. Speaking with my mortgage broker he mentioned he could re-fi this for me at 80% ltv which would get me my down payment back. 

Moral of the story, just like any investment buy it right! 

Hi Brook and about darn time you posted ;) Your story sounds all to familiar to mine, coming from the o&g sector as well. With that being said, I'm pretty over it as well thus the heavy investment of time and money in real estate. I hear other investors who are killing it with short term rentals in your area there, which I can see why. It's beautiful! 

I wish I could help you more with your commercial endeavor but that is a realm I am also just looking into and figuring out my place. I would love to hear more about your plans for this multifamily property though as I know that can be a great area to invest. 2 units to 20+ units is a hefty jump but I like it, go big or go home right? 

Look forward to hearing more about this! 

Hi Chase and welcome to bigger pockets! I am also an investor from the Edmonton area.

The way I started and try to help others start is by house hacking your own property. When we first got into investing we bought our own primary residence which we were able to put a secondary basement suite into. We were able to purchase the house using 5% down and added the Reno to the mortgage for the secondary suite. 

This house only cost us about 15k to get into it since we were moving into the property. (Purchased the house for 290k and added 40k for reno) From there you can decide to live in the upstairs suite or if you really want to save, live in the newly renovated basement suite. We were able to rent out the top level which covered the mortgage, taxes, and almost the insurance on the property. 

Now you do have to live in the property for one year doing it this way but we were only paying utilities and the rest of our living expenses were covered. From there it really makes it easy to save up the 20% for the next property or to buy another property to live in. Added bonus if you do move you can rent out top and bottom of the last house to create cashflow.

@Jonathan Yeh

If it doesnt come with appliances, make sure they have a decent credit to go towards that or you could find yourself with a 7k+ hit after the sale.

Check over the warranty and what items are covered. Does it qualify for the Alberta new home warranty program?

What landscaping comes with the deal, if any?

Without knowing more about the property, those are some general things that come to mind.

On a side note, congrats on the new digs! Always an exciting time!

@Jonathan Yeh

Really hard to say depending on the basement, size, and contractor you use. I did one which we did a good deal of the work and hired out what we were not comfortable with (I am a millwright and electrician so I am very comfortable doing my own work). That one cost me 20k to finish, but once again, very hands on. Was our first one and I didnt have the money so sweat equity was our only choice.

I just did another one last summer which came to 32k for a fully legal suite, professionally done. The permits were pulled prior to me doing the work and the basement was empty. This was about 800sqft and only a 1 bedroom.

I would agree that 50 -60k is a pretty average cost but it really depends if the basement is empty, size and finishes you get done. The big thing here is DO NOT PAY MARKET PRICE FOR THE HOUSE. I usually try and find houses where the upstairs needs minor work and I can add value through the secondary suite. But the property needs to be at the right price point where I can re-finance to get some if not all my investment back.

Great job on starting so young! I wish I had that discipline at 18 and would have started earlier then I did. On a side note, I am jealous you are in Italy and not dealing with all this darn snow we got 🙈 keep up the hard work!!

@Jonathan Yeh

Yikes a triple car garage! I know here we just need enough parking for the secondary suite but it does not need to be garage parking. Having a double car garage and a pad was more then adequate.That was one of my headaches with the illegal suite we had, not enough parking. Seemed to always become a fight of who got to park infront of the house. Another big one was heating and venting. I noticed a world of difference when we added a second furnace. Since the basement is inherently always colder it became a struggle trying to get both suites to compromise on a set temperature. The second furnace also cut down on noise between suites which travelled through the vents.

One item I would stress you do comply to, regardless the route you take, is proper fire separation between units. I saw this first had with my one friends tenant who experienced a nice kitchen fire in his basement suite. Luckily he had a legal suite and the fire was contained to just the basement. Had he not had a legal suite I don't think his insurance would have covered the damage and who knows how much further the fire would have travelled.

@Jonathan Yeh

What kind of rent do you expect to get from the basement suite? I know here in Edmonton we have a few that average around $1200/ month. For a 30k investment I can get an extra $14400 annually back. If you plan on keeping this property longer then 2 years I would say it's worth it to put the legal suite in. We did have one house with an illegal secondary suite in it but it was a nightmare to deal with and way more tenant complaints between units. An added bonus of having a legal secondary suite is when you re-finance the banks will typically give you an higher assessment then if it were a "nanny suite". I would stick with legal suites only, if you wanted to save a bit, keep it a sfh and add more bedrooms.

@Theresa Harris

I just found the property looking through the mls this morning so I have yet to talk with the city. Most likely closed today but I can try tomorrow. I have scheduled a walk through and will get a better idea of the price of the renovation after that. Could make for a nice walkout but pretty odd and leaves me with a lot of questions.