All Forum Posts by: Doug Pretorius

@Nicolas Houillon Wholesaling, flipping, BRRR, buy and hold, owner financing and lease options all work pretty much exactly the same way here as they do in the states.

I specialize in lease options and owner financing. Let me know if you're interested in those. Also I don't do deals in the West or the Maritimes so not worries about competition.

Because most people are terrible negotiators. Let the seller give their numbers first and ever remain the reluctant buyer. If they're motivated they will talk themselves down, sometimes to terms you would have felt embarrassed to offer them.

@Cameron G. I've specialized in rent to own (RTO) for over 20 years and although I've never personally used it to househack it can work very well for that.

1. Best way to find them is to contact For Sale By Owner's, Expired Listings, and For Rent By Owner's (in that order). As @Luka Milicevic mentioned you can go for active listings, but the rejection rate makes it my last choice.

2. You can get a much better deal on an RTO than you can from any conventional lender.

3. Lots. And lots and lots. Both as the tenant/buyer and as the landlord/seller. I've made tons of money.

4. Everything's negotiable. Sellers are typically more willing to give a discount on price over a rent credit of similar total value and that's better for you because it means you have instant equity instead of having to build it over time. There are also a lot of nasty financing laws that make rent credits tricky.

5. You can do multifamily or single family and rent out rooms. Single family will be easier to find because there are a lot more of them and cheaper for everything from payments to maintenance, also easier for a new investor to handle.

6. In the case of RTO it's just simple subletting and yes I've done it many times.

@Da Shiek Woodard Wholesalers can be a good source of sub2 leads I wish there were more wholesalers here in Canada. And also since you're posting this in the wholesale section you may want consider doing a few wholesale or wholesale lease option deals to build up extra reserves before diving into sub2 deals.

It depends entirely on what you're trying to accomplish and what type of investing you want to do.

Realtors as a group absolutely dominate the retail real estate market. That's why so many flippers hire a realtor to sell their properties. In most cases if you have a retail move-in ready house you're going to get a higher price, faster, and with less hassle by listing it on the MLS.

For buying working with a realtor becomes far less attractive for an investor. Firstly you can't find deals with just any realtor. To have any hope at all you will need to find a realtor who specializes in real estate investment. BP is a great place to do that. But before even looking for someone to work with you need to know what kind of buying you want to do. If you're looking for conventional purchases for long-term buy and hold, you can probably just go ahead to buy them off the MLS without too much trouble. You won't make much money upfront but over several decades that won't make much difference.

However, if you want to buy or sell in the wholesale market (for cash or terms) working with realtors is nearly impossible. Very few if any realtors are going to be focusing on these types of deals because they make up a tiny percentage of the total market. You are much better off spending your time and money developing a marketing strategy to locate or attract motivated sellers with off-market properties.

@Account Closed If it makes you feel any better when I buy on owner-carry I get far better terms than what you negotiated. I haven't paid more than 1-2% (usually 0%) on seller equity in more than 20 years.

I'm sorry that you agreed to 2nd position but that's water under the bridge at this point. I think you're right that the wrap would have been better, both for you and the buyer. You're going to have to wait and see if the buyer closes and then hope they don't default in the next 3 years. You're probably not going to want to breach because they will sue for performance anyway and if they win you'll be out legal fees and still have to go through with the deal.

1. Hire a new agent. OR
2. Call the listing agent and make an appointment to present your offer yourself.

Because they find deals.

Sounds about right. Canada's housing prices became absolutely absurd compared to wages and now it's a bloodbath. Many mid-sized cities have already seen a 30% decline from the peak and we haven't even hit the traditionally slow winter season yet. I'm hearing more and more stories of people who bought just 6 or 7 months ago now selling for $300-$500k less than they paid.

I think Canada has further to fall than the US because we didn't see the devastation that you guys did in 2008. We've had almost uninterrupted year-over-year appreciation since 1996. Around 2005-06 I was looking at houses in our version of class C/D neighborhoods in Hamilton Ontario for $25k. Those houses were going for over $700k in February.