All Forum Posts by: Greg Robinson

@Helen Robalino We find alot of poorly managed properties that can be purchased at the 1% rule and once normalized they end up being closer to 2% if not better.  Purchase prices are much lower up north but are rising quickly along with rents in the area.

Working on the purchase of a 4plex now - purchase price $155,000 with Annual NOI of $15,660. Annual expected NOI once normalized (two or three years) is $28,600.

Like your plan and ambition.  We have been investing just outside the Timmins area for a while. 

Let us know if there's anything we can do to help get you started in your property investing journey!

Hello Helen,

My wife and I invest and manage properties in Northern Ontario.  Quite a bit little farther north than Owen Sound, Midland, or Orillia though.  We are currently investing in smaller towns around Timmins.  There are several good investment properties in the area that have great cash flow and with the bonus appreciation in our area that has been on a steady upward trend over the last few years we have had some great success so far.

Biggest issue we found was finding quality property management which is why we manage our own properties and started a property management company to help several other investors and property owners in our area.

If you are interested in investing this far north let us know if we can help in anyway!

Greg

With your Total Cash Invested being $0 after renovating and refinancing you would have no cash invested in the property which will give you an infinite return.  My favorite kind of return!

Hi Kevin.  My wife and I currently live, invest and manage properties in a small town in North Eastern Ontario (4500 population) in a similar situation where the main employer (paper mill) shut down 3 years ago.  We often find properties with higher cap rates than 10% up here as there seems to be less liquidity and sellers can be more motivated to sell as properties sit on the market longer.  Some problems you may encounter are that it may be harder to find quality management, qualified tenants, buyers if you need to sell in the future and while there may be quality labor and trades the cost for repairs is at a higher ratio to property costs than bigger markets and often doesn't correspond to an increase in properly value in smaller towns.

Some ot the benefits are higher cap rates, good cash flow, inexpensive properties, depending on the area good rental rates and low vacancy.  A huge benefit for us living locally is that we know most if not all our tenants personally.

Hello all,

Have a question maybe some on here have seen or has knowledge about concerning Property Management in Ontario Canada.  

We currently personally own and operate 14 units ourselves and take care of a few places for family and friends. Lately there has been several people contact us to see if we could manage their properties as well and we are looking at forming a corporation to start a Property Management company.

As far as fees instead of the customary % of rent along with extra fees our current plan is to guarantee the customer (owner) a fixed amount per month and any extra income would be our fee.  ie: guarantee owner a fixed amount of say $1000 and rent property for $1300.  From several people we talked to they seemed to like this idea as they'd have their expenses plus covered and not have any worries about thier property or rent being paid.

Question is with Ontario having the tenant friendly laws they do could operating this way be against any rules?  Only one that comes to mind is if they would consider this as subletting and charging more for rent.  

Any thoughts are appreciated :)

Have you looked onto using a PPI - Purchase Plus Improvements mortgage?  We have used this method a few times and most A lenders offer it.  Maybe worth a look.

Hello everyone.  Great to see so many posters from Ontario.

We've been investing in North-eastern Ontario for five years. Mostly buy and hold rentals. SFH, duplexes and small multifamily/ commercial mix.

We recently started to rent and sub-let vacant SFH's that were listed but not selling. We basically cover the owners costs and re-rent with the tenants paying utilities etc.

Hope to make a business of it as well as manage properties in the near future.

@Mike Wood & Luc Boiron

Thanks for the input.  Looks like the rehab is out someone else purchased it and the finished property owners don't appear to be interested in moving on price yet.

 Hi @Cassie Bott-Baxter We currently have a portfolio of 14 units and are working on growing that number shortly.  Just trying to decide on which path to take going forward.

@Greg S. While we have become well versed in the RTA both through the school of hard knocks and reading the RTA I'm sure there's a few more lessons to be learned.

@Nick Thompson The major benefit we've found investing in a small town (>5000 people) that we were born and raised in is we know or know of everyone one we rent to.  Of the three possible evictions we could have had two ended with the parents moving the tenants out, cleaning and covering most of their costs.  We have run into the same issue of trying to find properties to continue growing or portfolio of rental properties; whenever something does come available they are usually over priced if they are in decent condition or are too far gone to make it worth putting the time into renovate.

Our biggest concern at the moment is that we are starting to find that we have too many eggs into one basket.  Need to find a new basket to put eggs into....