All Forum Posts by: Kevan Baum

I'm really not sure. If you're asking how many you need to make it your full time job then the number for my income would be 62. But I'm invested in 2 markets, so it's hard to manage the one that is 8 hours away from where I live.

This is a question that I think will be different for every single individual. If you really just want passive income the answer could be 1.

Disagree completely.  I actually think it's detrimental long term.  Especially if you're outside of large urban areas.

I invest exclusively here in Canada.  I find most metro and suburban areas require some creativity to be good investments.  An example is we bought a duplex here in High River for $277K per side.  We put about 35K into the rehab but both have walkout basements and attached 2 car garages.  We rent the top half of each along with the garage for $1400 and the basements for $1050 per side.  It cash flows, but wouldn't have if we didn't do the suites and rented out them as just 2 units.

Regina and Saskatoon have SFHs that cash flow.  Especially Regina.  The whole North Central (not the best area) cash flows tremendously.  If we had looked at Regina before we invested in suburban Calgary we never would have invested here.  

I have two doors locally and two doors in a neighboring province (Saskatchewan).  Bear in mind I've only owned the ones in Saskatchewan for 2 months.  Locally for a little over a year.  I have no issues managing the local ones.  I've had a couple of issues.  One was a leaking dishwasher and the other was a washing machine going down.

I hired a local property manager in Saskatchewan.  It just wasn't going to work for me to try to manage remotely.  I don't have enough contacts there yet and also there was more than enough cash flow to account for the 12% I'm paying the manager.  The ones they manage actually cash flow better than the local duplex I have.  

Hello Erika,

I rented a few times, but mostly with small individual landlords.  I really enjoyed them and it was all a good experience.  The only problem I ever had was lawn maintenance.  One landlord told me he had a lawn maintenance company and it was a key reason why I chose to live there.  6 months later he cancelled the contract and told me I now had to do it.  This was problematic as I was installing mailbox sites all over western Canada and could be gone for weeks at a time.

The only thing it taught me is not to change terms on tenants.  I ended up unhappily arranging friends to stop by and help me out when I was gone.  When the lease was over, I was gone even with him offering a rent reduction.  Do what you said.  Integrity is bedrock for me with my small portfolio.