All Forum Posts by: Mario V.

@Tabatha Lomov  That approach has crossed my mind,  but rewiring my mind to associate the word 'debt' with 'good' takes some work, that and my lack of experience in this field. 
That aside, it does feel like a stable enough solution, I'd just need a property management solution, as I would often not be in the country.

@Shawn Holsapple That advice does help a lot thanks. I've thrown some of the ideas and information from this thread at our Studio's investment guy to look into, I'll see what he comes back with in a few days.

@Karen M.  Thanks Karen :)
If you were to ask my family in Spain they would all tell you that now is the time to buy property in Spain, prices have never been this cheap.
However, given the economy issues there and the fact that overall, property is still cheaper and would generate a better cash flow in Canada or the US, I'm wary of investing anything in Spain. I have the feeling prices in Spain haven't settled yet. If I'm down there and see a property I love, I would probably still buy it, with a regular mortgage.

I do have to figure out where I want to live mostly, but some of that will depend on what I can do with the money and how confident I feel about longer term stability.

Renting out a Spanish property while I'm in Canada seems somewhat easy, as it's pretty common there to rent out fully furnished places, and tourism rentals would be an option too, to help pay for it.

Canada on the other hand, I'd have to put everything in storage or sell it off every time I want to be away and rent the house... I'm still going through options in my head for this...
Either way, I think I'd keep my house here and rent it rather than sell it, even if I was gone for a few years.
I imagine it's smarter to sell it down the road, after it's fully paid (with the rent).

Thanks again everybody for all the help, I'm looking into all the options presented what our Studio's investor can help with.

I've also been contacted by a few people here which is great!

Mario

Thanks everybody again for all the great advice, 

@Shawn Holsapple  The lending with proper paperwork and insurance is starting to sound very interesting... daunting too with my lack of know how, but one thing at a time I guess.

If I wanted to try lending out, or at least do some of that among other things, how much would it make sense to go with ? investing 200k into 1 spot would be to scary and risky and doing 20k might be not enough for investors to bother with ?

I'd be thankful for any contacts and tips.

I think if I was to go with buying and renting my own properties I'd probably want to buy them out outright, rather than using 200k as down payment for an army of properties.
While I imagine it would be the smarter way of using the money, as someone who never had a cent of debt in his life until I bought a house last year, the thought of owing money doesn't agree very well with me.

The local areas in which I'd think of buying properties around here (if I went with that option) are both university towns and I know I could get 2-3 condos with 200k, leaving anything above the 200k for emergencies, renovations etc if needed.

@Engelo Rumora ... I completely understand, no worries. Within my field of expertise I turn down lucrative contract work often enough when it doesn't agree with me on some level, but being completely out of my element in this arena, small steps and average goals seem wiser right now.

Hmmm I think I'm starting to see the issue with the yield rates and share prices with REITS...

@Joel Owens I like to think I'm good at reading up and doing research once I'm pointed in a direction, so if you have any specific keywords and suggestions you think I should look into, I'd be thankful. I have no difficulty reading up articles and cross referencing articles and options online to debunk hyperbole, but as a right side brain user I tend to lack an idea of what direction to start looking into in these matters.

@Jon Holdman Thanks for the tip, I've been reading into lenders and rehabbers now. My worry (from what I'm reading so far) with that would be trying to make regular decisions while sitting far away in Spain, but I'd trust my friend to do that for me here in Canada if I went that route.

Incidentally... what is an actual average return rate with rents ? 6%, 8%... less ?

@Colin Murphy Yeah, after doing some reading on Real Estate in Spain (and some horror stories) and given Spain's current Economy issues, I do feel more comfortable leaving my money in Canada so far.
Thanks for the advice, and if you're in Madrid (not Florida?) I hope you're enjoying life there!.

While reading up tonight I came across REITs which at first glance sound like a great alternative for someone inexperienced like me, looking for a simple cash flow, but things that sound great tend to make me wonder why not everybody is talking about them (or maybe they are and they just don't come up in artsy conversations).

Would a mixture of REITs be a good idea for my needs or is there a devil somewhere, aside from the obvious things I'm reading about, like being susceptible to the moods of the market ?

Hi everybody.

For the last few weeks I have been trying to read up as much as possible on what I want to do, and the most encouraging and interesting google results are always from this forum.

My dilemma comes from some money coming to me within the next few months. Work sometimes pays off in interesting ways.

So until recently I never had a reason to think outside my usual comfortable box and common retirement plans.

I've spent some time reading up here but as someone who has a different lifestyle from the incredibly knowledgeable people in this forum, I never looked in this direction of life and things still don't feel very clear to me and was hoping for some insight, confirmations, reassurances, tips, warnings... anything that makes potentially throwing large (for me) amounts of money at something feel less terrible.

Here's my situation: 

-I'm in Ontario and while most of what I read here seems to be US related, I imagine general wisdom will be just as useful either way.

-I'm turning 40 next month! (not sure why I would put an exclamation mark on that).

-I'll have something over 200k (CAD) sometime within the next 1-3 months.

-Bought a small house here last year, paying mortgage.

-I do always keep enough cash around to survive for up to 6 months without changing my lifestyle, so whatever my needs are I should be fine for a while, plus I have other small investments and such that I'd rather not touch.

-I'm Spanish, been working here as an artist for a studio for years and considering going back home soon, either permanently or for a few years or splitting time between Canada and Spain, from where I could still work from home for the same Studio here.

My initial plan was to use the 200k to buy a property in Spain that I could use when I'm there, and use a Property management company to rent it out to tourists (which seems pretty popular these days) when I'm here.

I haven't completely axed that idea but the more I read on the topic, coupled with the CAD to EUR rates and the fact that if I decide to stay in Spain for a longer period of time there would be 0 cash flow, the more it sounds like a rather bad investment, for what I want anyway.

So plan B, which is currently plan A, would be to buy some property here in Canada that I just rent out, regardless of where I am and either have my savvy best friend look over it/them (hope she won't read this before I ask her if it comes to it) or have a property management company do it.

In a perfect world I would use the 200k to generate around 20k each year, which is all I would need to live comfortably in Spain if I wasn't able to work at all... which is the very worst case scenario I like to plan for. While I'm not a fan of it, there's always contract work for me I can do from home if things should ever get tight (and I'd rather not move again to yet another country to be on site) so I should be fine either way.

My concern is that I don't know at all if 20k net is realistic, until now I never thought much about passive cash flow at all. I've found a lot of very helpful reading material here but simple numbers that make sense for a layman in this area seem hard to come by.

I'd be interested in knowing if it's a realistic goal, or what it would take to get there, having some 200k as a starting point.

I realize that the type, quality and location of properties play a role, and that issues in any property would always add extra costs... and I imagine that some issues can be rather expensive, too... for which I would use an existing pool of around 30-80k that is separate from the 200k.
As long as I do some work I don't see a problem with always having the ability to maintain or even expand that emergency pool, if it seemed necessary.

I think that's all, any advice would be welcome

Thanks.