All Forum Posts by: Lubica J.

Thank you for your insight, @Gurjot Grewal. Much appreciated.

@Dan Crosby

Single family house for vacation rentals (3 bedrooms and 2 or 3 bathrooms).

Hi everyone,

I am considering buying a property in USA remotely, while still living and working in Canada.

Couple of US lenders I talked to seem to be unable to offer me a mortgage because I don’t have American SSN (Social Security Number).

I wonder how other Canadians obtain financing without SSN and American credit score?

Do you only use hard money lenders or buy cash – or is there a way to obtain a regular U.S. mortgage?

There seem to be a mortgage with RBC bank, but their APR is from 6.472% to 7.188% which is very high.

I assume their penalties and pre-payment privilages will be similarly unfavourable – but I still need to set up an appoitment to figure their product out.

Can anyone advice me how did you go about getting your mortgage in USA with the local US lender while living in Canada?

Thank you in advance.

Hi everyone,

Can anyone recommend a good mortgage broker in OBX area, North Carolina?

I am looking for a broker that works with multiple lenders (not just one single lending company), can compare the conditions, penalties and rates of various products and recommend the best option for my situation.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

Thank you, Paul. This was very eye-opening. And scary. Ontario is definitely off my list now. Thank you again!

Thank you for your support and encouragement, @Paul Sverdlin, I really appreciate it. I have been hearing that Canadian house market bottomed already (they say US market did not yet) and is about to start rising again, so I admit that I feel the pressure. I believe that it is better to buy cheaper and pay more on mortgage, because I can always adjust the mortgage later (if I have a full -feature mortgage), but I cannot fix the high purchase price if I buy when everyone else jumps into the market.

I am also VERY risk averse and have been reading financial books regularly for over 15 years, though I admit that I don’t recall nearly as much of their content as you do. I was always too scared to take action. However the pain of not doing anything grows over the time and I am now at the point when the pain of inaction is bigger than the fear of failure. I am absolutely determined to find answers to all of the million questions I have and to buy my first property this year even if the market is not right – I will try to put more hours of work and research into it to compensate for the more difficult conditions. I also don’t believe that I could time the market correctly, so I might as well jump in, I just need to find the best way to do it.

I heard that Alberta is more cyclical and oil-dependent? That when the oil price goes down, companies reduce drilling and many people leave the province and rents plumet. If I invest in Alberta, I will have to do it remotedly so that I can keep my job – in which case it might be better to invest remotedly in USA?

Love your advice on landlord friendly states – I’ve seen some scary enviction troubles on YouTube. I am going to research remote investing and setting up local teams (cleaners + handyman etc) more both for Canadian provinces and US, so I’ll look into Florida numbers closer.

Would you know, are there any additional taxes for foreign investors purchasing US properties that local residents do not pay?

Thank you again.

Thank you everyone for all your support and amazing advice.

@Chris Baxter, @Christopher H., and @Zorya Belanger: my long-term goal is to become financially independent in approx. 7-10 years. Having enough income for both my partner and I to be able to live of it.

My short-term goal is just to start somewhere, buy something that I can handle financially and skills-wise and build up from there. I need to solve 2 problems at once: I need to live somewhere and later I need to figure out what will eventually bring me to financial freedom over longer period of time. For that, I am collecting information both on US and Canada and since I could not figure out Canada’s market at all, I started this discussion.

As @Roy Cleeves suggested, my first step is to talk to my employer since everything will depend on if I can move to US. From what I am reading here, it seems that there are more opportunties for deals in US than there are in Canada. Easier buyer market is very important for a beginner buyer like me, though I realize that US is much more difficult option personaly (employment uncertentainty; obtaining work visa; getting mortgage while Canadian credit score is not accepted and having no US credit score yet; at-will employement; healh care; moving car and property across continent…and many more).

After reading all comments, buying a house and renting out a part of it seems to be the best first step for a novice. I realize that this will not bring any cashflow. The house will help me to start building equity and when rents catch up on my mortgage payment 7 to 10 years later, it might even start cashflowing a little bit. Plus, we will have a place where we can live and can invest the rent we are currently paying towards our own mortgage.

In the meantime, I will keep saving money and once I get more experience in real estate, I will start looking into more advanced strategies that @Bryce Fairburn suggested: adding ADU to the property or buying a duplex that can be converted into a triplex. However this takes skills, knowledge and contacts in the industry that I still need to work for.

Thank you for suggesting CMHC report, @Zorya Belanger, I downloaded it and I am going to read through it. I am also going to research the remote investing more, as suggested.

Thank you for your great advice everyone, it helped me immensely.

 Thank you,  Jason, much appreciated. I now realize that I had a bit skewed view based on the US books I read/listened to. It is of course appropriate when tenant covers just a part of the mortgage, depending which part of the house they live in.  I need to do a bit more research about what my employer will or will not agree to, but so far it seems that we will have to stay in BC. In which case I'll get in touch with you soon.

Thank you again for your time and advice.

Thank you, @Stevo Sun - this brought me the clarity on how people invest in Canada. Thank you for your advice. 

Hi, I am new to Bigger Pockets and would love to hear your opinion.

My partner and I would like to buy our first property for house-hacking in Canada to start our journey in real estate.

We have been researching markets in British Columbia (Vancouver, Nanaimo, Victoria, Kelowna), Ontario (mainly Ottawa) and Nova Scotia (Halifax). It doesn’t seem that any numbers work for house-hacking nor for rentals – we cannot even find a property where we would break even, which makes me wonder if real estate investing into MTR or LTR is still possible in Canada or is it working only in USA at this point?

We are considering 2 options: Our preferred option is buying a duplex, live in one part and rent the other half. There are not many multi-family properties on Zillow and other webpages, so we didn’t get much progress in researching this option.

The second option is to buy a 2 bdr apartment for us and then another separate 2 bdr apartment for MTR or LTR. Unfortunately, even in cheaper markets such as Ottawa, the cost of the 2 bdr is approximately 350k – 400k and rent seems to be around $2,300. With home association fees $500 - $1,000 monthly plus mortgage plus taxes and all expenses – the cashflow comes always negative. Even without home association fees, the calculations barely came even. We are open to move anywhere in Ontario if the numbers make sense. Ottawa was the only cheaper-ish market that we found so far.

If you are experienced realtor in Ontario, what other towns/locations would you recommend?

In British Columbia, well, real estate investing seems impossible. With the current prices being double of those in Ottawa, we would only be able to pay the downpayment for one property (for us to live in) and there would be nothing left for investing into the rental. Not to mention high crime rates in Kelowna, Nanaimo and Vancouver.

Our employer doesn’t allow relocation outside of British Columbia, where we currently live. If we want to move to Ontario, we will have to completely re-root our lives and careers. A proper market research and a belief that real estate investing in Canada still makes sense is very important to us before both of us take such fundamental steps.

Can anyone advice where would you start in this situation? What strategies do people in Canada use if cashflow is so significantly negative?

How do we find good real estate agents in Ontario and/or in BC who have access to off market opportunities or at least pre-market? (BP Agent Finder offers only US options).

We bought online courses and books on Canadian mortgages, MTR and listening to BP podcasts, but we are still quite lost since the theory from the US books and podcasts doesn’t match the financial calculations with today’s prices in Canada. And there are so many books that we haven’t read yet, that I worry I might fall in trap of reading and not taking action.

If USA is the only option to invest for cash flow, does anyone here have an experience in investing in USA while still living in Canada?

Any advice will be highly appreciated. Thank you.