All Forum Posts by: Mark Brazier

I'm a business school dropout myself. And I now own 5 units and have done a flip. And own a successful service business. I only started 2 and a half years ago. I don't want to say you should dropout but school honestly scares the hell out of me. I come from a family of business and I quickly realized that school wasn't the route I'd like to take to learn entrepreneurship.

This is why I like the approach of being a real estate entrepreneur and not just an investor. I have active and passive income. My passive income source comes from only two properties, a triplex and a duplex which is also my primary residence. My rental portfolio currently generates $1700/month positive cash flow. My property management business which does everything from managing my own properties to, lawn care, landscaping, small renos etc for other clients has been up and running for only 5 months and I have generated about $30,000 in gross active income. I'm always on the look for flip opportunities as well. I have flipped one property to date. Here's my time line for doing the above listed. -6 years ago bought primary residence. (Non investor mindset) -sat stagnant for 4 or so years. Then decided I wanted to peruse real estate -put an apartment in my basement of my primary home. -1 year ago flipped a single family home made $10k after paying my partner. -6 months ago purchased a triplex -5 months ago started a property management business. I do believe it is very hard to make a lot of money fast unless you have a lot of capital to throw around or unless you incorporate an active dynamic to your business. Passive income is typical slow to build, but active income can be generated every single day. One more thing to add, all depends on your ambition. Having 5-7k cash flow per month at the age of 27 all while paying down mortgages sounds great to me. I'll take it! Also real estate has a tremendous compound effect. If I stop all that I'm doing right. I'll have 1 million in free and clear assets in my 40s.

@Thomas S. for telling me to go for it. It helped me a lot to hear that you have successfully taken this route in the past and succeeded. 

@Thomas S. I don't really expect any push back and I feel as though I will hear about concern prior to them going to the board if they even decide to resist. I have already presented my intentions to them the day I took the property over. So I'll make my own form I guess

@Thomas S.This is the exact reason I posted here. Hoping to hear from someone like yourself. That is a great strategy you just presented. I agree I think it is worth going after and it's good to hear that you have had success yourself. What form do you use when you give notice of a rent increase. my tenants are month to month. Do I still need to give 90 days? 

Thank you

Thank you for all of the input. Very helpful. @Matt Geerts I was somewhat familiar with the RTA before my purchase. I read the RTA in my brokers office pre purchase. I mostly wanted to know if I should at least try to get rents up and if anyone has ever done so against rules written in RTA. It seems there is a lack of education around the RTA, and I have heard several stories of other landlords doing things against RTA. 

I bought the property with awareness to RTA but with intention to at least try to increase profits. 

A typical single family 1200 Sq ft home in the same neighbourhood would sell for 220k 

This property is 2300 Sq ft and is fully tenanted. Purchased for 250k. The sellers suffered on sale price because they never raised rents!

I just purchased a multi unit property in Ontario and the rents are quite low in comparison to what they should be. So I have a couple questions about going about these increases. I have been making some improvements on the property and I have told tenants verbally that I am looking to increase rents for May 1st. I haven't yet received any resistance and one tenant even acknowledged her low rent when I met her on day one of taking the property over and she offered to write me a check for a higher amount. My improvements have now come to an end and I would like to get something in writing from my tenants.

So none of my tenants have a lease they are all month to month by default. Now I don't know if I will get resistance from them but I would like to a) have them sign a lease for my desired rent which is more than the guideline increase set by landlord tenant board, or if I get resistance b) end tenancy and renovate their apartments altogether and rent them for full market rent. 

Can I do this? Should I do this? Has anyone ever done this? 

Thanks!

Roy N. yes I'm aware of that. There are similar guidelines throughout Canada though as far as I know. What are general guidelines for rent increases in your area? Raising rent by $100 seems like a large increase though. I guess that is allowable in some areas in the states? That would be a 10% increase in my market.

The way everyone is talking on this post is as if there are no restrictions on rent increases. I live in Canada and by law I can only raise rents by 1-3% a year. I actually just purchased a multi unit with tenants paying below market rent and I am working on raising rents slightly above guidelines set by landlord tenant act. All of my tenants are month to month as well so this may make things easier. 

Hey guys I'm an investor in the area. I was also born and raised in the heart of Muskoka (Bracebridge). So to this date I have 2 rentals and 1 flip under my belt and have a couple friends who have done very well in the short term summer cottage type rentals such as AirBNB. I'll answer any questions you have to the best of my ability. 

Muskoka is a very unique market in it's own. It is to my knowledge one of the wealthiest tourist driven towns. We experienced what looked to be an all time high in terms of sales in the real estate industry in 2016. It was a complete buyers market. I took on a renovation project on a single family home this year and sold it off this summer for 5000 more than what an appraiser told me it was worth. There was huge demand this year and not much lasted more than a week on the market if it was priced right.

As for traditional rentals muskoka is a great market because our average family income is around 59,000 per year leaving a large portion of people in that lower income level. Also with the new policy changes with CMHC high ratio mortgages first time home buyers will have a much tougher time buying their first home so the rental pool will increase leaving more people looking to rent.

I currently hold two rentals one in which is an owner occupied rental which I purchased for 200k 7 years ago and it is worth around 275k today and this year I purchased a triplex as well for 250k and as is with no improvements this yields me an 8% return a year which I would say is quite low. This is also the reason I was able to purchase a solid standing triplex for 250k it's income potential is closer to 20-25% return a year. 

Everything I have spoken of thus far is not in regards to water properties and cottages. This is where the big money is I have heard if you're willing to fork out more money and accept a higher level of risk. I have a couple friends who have done well with AirBNB. They have been booked up all summer for the last few years and they are clearing more than what you would make on the properties if they were a traditional rental in just 3-4 months. The disadvantages in my opinion are the meeting and greeting and cleaning up after people. there is more management involved and what would happen to your profits if you hired the duty out? 

Just wrote a novel. I haven't been active on here in a while so this makes up for it haha. I'd be happy to chat some more with anyone with questions about the area.