All Forum Posts by: James Ma

There's nothing wrong with offering cash for keys - it wouldn't affect you in court as it is a legitimate offer you can make to a tenant.

Increasing the rent $200/mo which is a 25% increase during COVID times is a very risky move depending on the tenant class. If this were lower end tenants, I would be worried that they'd try to game the system knowing you can't evict and decide not to pay you at all. That is a huge increase though and it sounds like they may just not be able to afford it... I'd try to decide if its financially profitable to do the cash for keys option for you otherwise you may have to just tough it out until you can evict if they wont move.

Congrats on becoming a landlord, a lot of the job is just being able to deal with tenants in the right way and things will work out.

I would just respond with a lot of good questions like Sue mentioned so they can come to the conclusion themselves this doesn't have anything to do with you.

What caused the power surge? How do we know that?

Who would be responsible for preventing that from happening?

How often has the power surge issue been happening and ongoing for?

How would the landlord be aware there is any issue to address to prevent this from happening?

Great warning Owee. Most hackers are very smart nowadays. I used to support businesses with all their tech solution needs in a sales capacity so got to learn a ton about cyber security!

On average, hackers are sitting and gathering information on you for 4-6 months before making their move. As with your story, they find out the most vulnerable targets and highest opportunities to score big before jumping. Usually their emails will appear as being real since it shows their name as the sender but if you look closely at the actual email address it will look off. Hackers may also send out the virus to your contacts as well to mimic you and further spread their virus through attachments or weblinks. Bitcoin farming is another common practice now where they simply install programs to run in the background on your computers or smartphones and you will only notice the speed seems slower.

Hopefully you have a very good anti-virus program as its likely your computer is exposed and they are still lurking in your system. Even having a backup may not be enough as viruses can be backed up too with the rest of your files.

It's not about what rent you want, its about what your property can fetch on the market. If you are missing 3 months of rent, It may have cost you more than if you rented it at market price. 

Ie. Rent is $900/mo you want but you would get $800 on the market. You'd miss out on $2700 in revenues whereas renting it out at market value is only a $100 "loss" per month and the tenant would have to stay for 28+ months in order for it to be a worse scenario. Plus depending on your location's rent increase rules, you can always increase it YoY.

Other options are to do renovations to make the property more
attractive, the main wow factors for renters are the kitchen and
washrooms.

I think this is a very personal question and objective to each individual. I'd ask yourself the following questions to help guide you:

- How much work would you consider to be too much? What is life balance to you?

- How much work would your family consider to be too much? Have you discussed the time you'd like to spend on work (both job and real estate) and are they supportive of it?

- If there is no ability to compromise, would the real estate or family come first?

Personally I like to check in with my fiancee and make sure that she feels she's getting enough time from me and asking her what she wants. Open communication is key to any relationship. I also explain to her when I have to spend a bit more time on work (ie. vacancy that needs to be filled, or about to purchase a new property).

Align your goals with your family and getting their input will also help make them feel a part of the decision making process and not that you decided to spend X amount of hours per week doing more work and taking away from family time without their thoughts being considered.

Before I take applications, I like to do prescreening calls. Asking things like when they want to move in, their income, how many people are living at the rental etc. and it will eliminate any poor candidates right off the bat.

Be honest and upfront about you have a sooner availability for renting so that is your preference. If she can make it work then great otherwise it may put her at a disadvantage to other applicants who are looking for something sooner and are a good fit.

BC is my preference for rentals. I had looked into both AB and BC when getting started a few years ago and glad I made the right call. The numbers were slightly better in AB from a cashflow perspective, but the appreciation was much stronger historically in BC and also a bit less vulnerable to the oil & gas industry which has hit AB properties hard along with COVID.

REITs and syndicates are a great option if you're looking for better RE diversification. It'll allow you to own buildings you would not be able to afford on your own.

 Every syndicate is structured differently so I would scout out a few and see which one fits your investment strategy the best. 

It's a very personal question. How much is your time worth essentially and are you happy managing your rentals?

I have a handful of properties about a 1 hr drive away from me but if there's any issues I am calling trades to connect with the tenant so the only reason I need to drive there would be for inspections and moveins/moveouts. Most months do not require any action from me so I find paying someone to help assist is not worth it.

However for others who are maybe inexperienced in acting as a landlord or would rather not deal with the stress of finding tenants, calling trades or don't have the time etc. it would be a worthwhile expense.

I'd be upfront with a realtor first your bidding strategy and investment criteria so you're both aligned and on the same page. Some realtors will be comfortable with doing a lot of lowball offers while others will not. There should also be the understanding of what types of offer makes sense and what is wasting people's time since if the offer is so low its unlikely to be accepted or the seller may as well do a pricedrop to garner interest before even considering your offer etc.

If the realtor is a good fit for you, he should be able to make some recommendations on areas that meet your criteria or advise if what you're seeking is not common in the areas he or she is familiar with