All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Josh, 

If this property is still available please send me an e-mail at [email protected]

Josh, 

If this property is still available please send me an e-mail at [email protected]

Hi, Please e-mail more information to [email protected]

Thanks

 As with many questions in Real Estate and in General, the answer is often "It depends", what does it depend you may ask? is this case the answer is you!

The reason I like the option of house hacking so much is that it gives you the opportunity to be a landlord with relatively low risk. You can learn to landlord and virtually have your eye on the property at all times! If you set it up properly you can essentially live rent / mortgage free. Once the time comes where you have accumulated enough experience and capital you can simply move out and repeat the process or buy another property.

For someone like me who is young and has a lot to learn, house hacking is the clear option. But maybe in your situation you rather not do that!

1) You'll have to do a cost benefit analysis here for your specific situation. 

Personally, investing a few hours away is a great benefit to me. Where I live, real estate is expensive and I simply cannot afford a down payment. (Duplexes are 400k-600k)Furthermore, the laws where I live treat landlords as if they're charity workers; it is very tenant sided. For this reason It makes sense for me to invest in another province in an area that is much more affordable and laws are a little bit more sensible. Write down what the benefits/cons are for yourself and see what you are most comfortable with.

2) If everything else is equal, I would totally buy a closer duplex and live in one and rent the other aka "House Hack". This offers you the opportunity to have a discounted mortgage/free rent while providing you with landlording experience at the same time. Also, there is much less risk and you can sometimes get away with putting less money down. (not 100% sure about that, i'm canadian and not familiar with american laws).

Keep researching and learn as much as you can! 

@Chris Walters Chris, I am in total agreement with you. The cap rates in Montreal are very low, which makes finding a good buy a hold deal extremely difficult. The biggerpockets guys always talk about the 1 or 2 percent rule and that is almost impossible for the vast majority of real estate in Montreal. 

When you think about it, it makes sense. Look at California, they have a larger GDP & population than Canada in a land mass that is a fraction of the size. This makes it easier for investors seeing as there are multiple towns outside of cities that offer much more interesting deals. Canada, and especially Quebec does not have the variety and size that Americans do.

Am I saying it is impossible to find a deal in Montreal? Absolutely not, but for a beginner it is very very difficult. 

Welcome! Where did you buy? I'm 23 and from Montreal as well!

Hello everyone!

I'm in the process of educating myself and saving money to invest in to my first income property. I've been listening the blogs, reading books and acquiring as much information as a I possibly can. I'll be sitting down in November of this year with my business partner to come up with a plan, criteria and a goal for our investment. Right now we'd like to purchase our first property in the fall of 2017.

Here's the problem, I live in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Which happens to be province with laws that are absolutely terrible when it comes to landlording.

For example:

You cannot collect a security deposit
You cannot ask for first and last months rent (although people do, i'm sure)
Tenants can pay consistently late by up to 3 weeks and if you cannot prove to the court that their consistent lateness has not cause you financial harm, well too bad for you.
You can't charge late fees
Eviction is almost impossible - even if they completely go against the lease i.e pets, airbnb the property when you forbid it, consistent late payments etc.


The province really treats landlord like they are a charity and that people landlord out of the goodness of their hearts, when reality it is a business.

So here is my question,

Is it a good idea to invest in your first property out of the Country? Out of province?

How hard is it to manage a property, especially your first one at a distance?

If I can't attain financial goals in this country I may just have to wait and move to the US, which I have always wanted to do