All Forum Posts by: Henry Salonen

Does anyone in Ontario have experience applying the Ontario First-Time Home Buyers' (FTHB) Tax Credit and Home Buyers Plan (HBP) to an investment property? I have heard that there may be cases when the FTHB and HBP can be applied to the purchase of an property even if you didn't move into the house, as long as you intended to do so. Does anyone have experience with this?

In the future I hope to purchase my first home in Toronto, however due to the high prices of real estate in Toronto I am considering buying an investment property outside of Toronto first and continuing to live on rent in Toronto. If I cannot apply to FTHP and HBP to the investment property I would hope that later down the line the FTHB and HBP would still be available to me even though I made a real estate purchase as an investment.

I am not sure if it as good idea to use the FTHP and HBP outside of Toronto. It seems like it would be beneficial to apply the FTHP and HBP in the Toronto area with the prices being so high but it is a difficult place to start as a first time investor which is why I am looking elsewhere. I fully intend to invest in Toronto as soon as I have the capital. 

Has anyone out there purchased an investment property in a cost effective city while renting in an expensive city (such as Toronto)? Was it your first real estate purchase? 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! 

Thanks!

Henry

Welcome @Brandon Williams! Congratulations on your first flip, looking forward to reading about it!

 I appreciate the valuable feedback! I can now push the future Waterloo student rental out of my headspace! I will keep the turn key option in mind though.

From what I gather yes I agree with you completely condos are higher risk and they will be the first effected if the Toronto market takes a big hit. However it seem the riskiest area of Toronto condo investment are the cookie-cutter units, which I plan to stay far away from. There seem to be a few gems in this city, a few unique low-rise buildings that I believe would be sought after in almost any market. 

I am eager to begin and I hope to begin locally. I am more familiar with the downtown Toronto condo market at this point than anything else (although I have much to learn). It may however be wiser to begin to research investing in a single family home. The issue is the prices are much higher and I would need to look outside of downtown Toronto and perhaps even outside of the GTA. 

Your warnings are not landing on deaf ears. I will deeply consider these thoughts and I will continue to do research before I act. I will talk to local agents and connect with Toronto condo investors to gain more information. I will definitely plan my exit strategy! 

Thank you @Samuel Sedore,

I do believe that the flip and reno experience will be of help eventually. I am however considering starting out by setting up a boutique condo units as rentals here in Toronto as I have very little time to manage a renovation at the present time. The Toronto condo market seems to be healthy. Down the road I do hope to invest in Waterloo. I once studied at University of Waterloo and I would be interested in setting up a rental property near the University. Is this something that you would recommend?

Hi @Dea Chu,

Thank you for the warm welcome! Both of the properties I have invested in have been in Seguin Ontario. Will you be investing in a rental property in Sudbury or have you considered investing out of town? In the long term I'm considering investing outside of Toronto once again, perhaps even in the US, however I'd like to establish a few investment properties in Toronto first. Filming on location is certainly always full of excitement! 

Best,

Henry

I have worked as a restaurant designer for about 4 years in Toronto and now work as a art director (set design) in the feature film industry. I've invested time into real estate in northern Ontario. I built a house with my father and then sold it. I also flipped a cabin with my father which we now rent out during the summer. I have lived in Toronto for 9 years and I am excited to begin investing in real estate in this great city! I know I cannot invest alone so I am hoping to find an enthusiastic mentor! What I can offer in return is part-time design consulting to create more affordable, efficient and modern design solutions. I recently attended a real estate investment seminar and quickly found that many of the people that had attended the same seminar highly recommend BiggerPockets. Looking forward to learning from this vibrant community!

Henry Salonen