All Forum Posts by: Erik Pilon

I had a call with Bank of Montreal last week asking questions about loaning for my first.

One question I asked was “what if I want to buy 100 units, do you have limits? I know in the US it’s a bit hard after 10.”

The guy said “it’s fine, we evaluate based on income. But we only use 50% of your property gross incomes to evaluate. If it qualifies, you could theoretically keep going”.

Maybe a different mortgage rep would say something different though.

MoneySense says Brentford is the best choice for investing in 2018.

Costs are ok-ish in the 250,000 - 350,000 range for a 2-3 multi family.

But if I was looking for 150,000 while finger-crossing to stick with the “1% rule”, I’d be in the outskirts.

Then I got thinking “how far away are people actually willing to stay from a major city, and rent rather than buying?”

Thoughts?

I’m an expat, so my first investment property is going to be long-distance.

This is what’s going in my head:

I can never seem to finish researching, they all seem to contradict each other. I’ll do it my own way then, I found online tools to help me gauge different markets. Damn the country’s big.... which city do I choose....? I’m limiting myself to CAD 130,000 for down payments for a bunch of properties or 1, should I do 5% down and get more or 30% down and less... should I find something in a large city or 2 hours out? Will people even rent that far away? Let me research, ah, it seems like rent is really low that far... obviously... I was looking to make a bit more though... oh, there’s a blog post saying rentometer is not accurate and never to rely on it... ok so scratch that then... real rent prices will have to be a call at some point. Let’s just research more then. Damn! there’s an extra 25% tax for non-resident investors? I’ll need an accountant in my “core-4” to help me lower that... more like “core-5” now... Ok, so I need much bigger to breakeven then.... should I just buy an 8-plex? Which city though? Google “best city to invest in 2019”, ok... so number 1 is not a city I know at all... should I do it anyways? I need more research, maybe not an 8-plex to start, seems too big... maybe a triplex... oh seems like people are saying 2-3 multi families are way overpriced and that’s what beginners usually buy to get skin in the investing game, the competition is fears... maybe I should go bigger then, I have enough capital to outpace them.... maybe in the suburbs of that unknown city... do people even rent there? Is there even a bus that goes out there? What’s the local bus called and what’s the scheduling for work like from suburb of unknown, towards unknown? Damn! People in my imaginary building would have to wake-up at 4:30AM to get to work downtown of unknown on time... do they do that? Is it just a bunch of people staying and working at mom-and-pop shops...? No idea, how would I know that..? Eurgh, let me play a couple of games online of Rich Dad’s CashFlow to motivate myself... I win again... damn this game is too easy... maybe it’s a sign I’d actually be good at judging costs in real life...? No... that’s stupid, it’s a board game. Back to BiggerPockets podcasts.... ok, so this guy says go big or do nothing... so maybe 8-plex after all... another podcast... what the hell! Where do these guys find these $90,000 properties??? How old is this podcast? Do they invest 2 hours away from unknown cities too...? Screw it, should I just do it? We all die one day, and all this worry is useless, right...? Should I just jump into it already and screw everything? I won’t even remember all of this fuss once it all goes dark. No! What am I talking about?! I’m doing this so I DON’T fail, what am I thinking? I saved so much to mess it up even once! I’m doing it so I can quit this stupid job and spend more time with my unborn child, pass down wealth at some point! Ok, let’s just do it... start a long-distance team then... expat tax accountant emailed, check. Bank called, check. Now which city to choose my agent from...... eurgh.... Google “real estate investor advisor”....

If you’ve read this far, I salute you.

Maybe just a consultation is needed?

Do people usually include accountants as part of their team?

I’ve owned certain companies outside Canada and would do all finance/cashflow myself, but real estate is a new field to me as well as doing finance in a country which is not tax free.

Example questions: Under which entity should I be under before purchasing real estate to protect myself and my family from bankruptcy? (Could be a lawyer question, but should I include one too?)

Investing from overseas as a non-resident, how do I file for a withholding tax reduction and which taxes am I looking at here? I think downpayment needs to be 25% as well rather than 20%? I’ve done a bit of research but don’t know where to start to apply these.

I have enough capital for 4-5 down-payments, should I be transferring these amounts to my old Canadian bank account before getting pre-approved before receiving a loan or I can do everything with my overseas bank account if the loans are cheaper here?

So many questions...

Long-distance investment adds another layer of research, it’s a killer. Can’t seem to just “jump in” already.

All this to say, do you get accountants or do everything yourselves while within country? If you were out of country, would you still have / think about having an accountant?

Hi @Karim Sam, any luck? What happened in the end?

I’m interested to know cause I’m in the same boat now.

@Jonathan Ho, yes this is definately what I'm looking for at the start while getting a grip into things.

I just bought the audiobook Long Distance Real Estate that was recommended above. I hope it goes through it, as I have no idea how to find this "turnkey" property. It's not really a search term I can input on REMAX for example while home searching.

@Chris Habets, I’ve searched what turnkey was yesterday, Wikipedia definition gave something to the lines of a property being the responsibility of the contractor or something similar.

Is “turnkey” people on here referring to the name of a company?

@Roy Cleeves, thanks for this team. I’ll research to see in which order I’ll need to coordinate this.

@Paul Hanchard, ah very awesome. Going to purchase the book now.