All Forum Posts by: Daniel Massicotte

And if you send the emails from an offshore company you can really put whatever you want in them. 

Good one! I intend to live in all my properties, at all times!

It seems that millennials are not interested in living in houses. In another 10 years you won't find one within a 10km radius who knows how to operate a lawn mower. Then again...

In terms of selection in the condo world, unless your 1BR unit has something special (high floor, unobstructed view of the lake, underground access to the subway, etc.) it's not exactly a desirable unit. And Hamilton... ugh... what is that close to?

If you sell the condo you trigger a capital gain. If you close it and put a HELOC on it you access capital without paying taxes. These days condo inventory on the market is very low. There's never been a better time to sell it, if you wanted to.

Why don't you sell it, and educate yourself in energy stocks. RE is at the top; meanwhile energy is at the bottom. Everyone on this forum seems hell bent on taking RE money and putting it back into RE. You could buy dividend aristocrats and fund the rest of your life with dividends not having to lift a finger. 

I think most RE pundits on here are long RE and nothing more. 

Where's the "Investing with Your Profits" sub-forum?

Probably yeah. 

The thing to keep in mind with pre-construction, as with all of them is the maintenance fees. Friends around the world in Tier 1 countries are complaining of this... so it's not just Toronto. Maybe it's nothing. 

Pre-cons are so easy. It's buy and hold without the mortgage hassle for several years.

Pre-construction condos double in value every 10 years. 

Your tax situation and the 2.24% management fee, or MER, that you are paying are two different things. 

That fee of 2.24% is insanely high. How do you expect to stay above inflation with that? MERs are subtracted from whatever the return is.

It really comes down to money and strategy. I could write a whole book on it. 

Remember to factor buying and selling, also taxes... Getting 2% on a $1M purchase price is great... but then there's taxes you need to factor in. You may already be in the highest income tax bracket. 

On the other hand you can work with an agent and put a ton of $ in their pocket in exchange for other benefits. 

They're also great if you make money elsewhere and just want to park your money, leveraging time, but don't want to get a mortgage and deal with tenants for a few years. If you like condos, consider setting the groundwork for buying several rather than just one here or there. It's a lot more fun to work with RE agents, mortgage brokers, lawyers, etc. when people think it's not just a "one-off" transaction with you. 

Yes a builder will hold on to your $100-200K for a number of years. Someone quoted $70K earlier, but with the price of a 1BR+Den/2BR in the city where it's at, I have not seen anything in the $70K range. When you are applying for mortgages at banks and approval from builders you can actually list your existing pre-constructions as "net worth" to support your application. There is a way to do it!

It's been 6-7 months now since you were thinking about this condo, so I guess we should be getting an update from you. :)

Yeah the accountant would be the one to check with, or even a lawyer who handles the paperwork, if you use one. 

If you're in Toronto you get a rebate there too. Then again if we're talking $4,000 for Ontario it's probably not in Toronto unless it was bought 6-7 years ago as a pre-construction. :-)