All Forum Posts by: Natasha Attia

Well the  best part Catholic services people did no show up. Who can you rely on? After waiting for some time I called them. As per them they have cancelled the appointment, but they did not. I am still considering this option. 

Thank you for your input. It gave a lot of food for thought. I will post after meeting

Ok, let's see what they offer. I will keep posted

I wonder if anyone has done it. May be it is not that bad. At the end of the day my husband and I are immigrants as well. And looking back I can tell that we were perfect tenants

I am meeting Catholic Services rep on Thursday. Wondering what would be the right questions to ask

it seems like refugee pays. I can not afford charity.

Hi landlords,

Who had an experience of renting to refugees with no employment or rental references? I was approached by Catholic Services. Have you done it? Have you have any issues? I am struggling to find tenant now anyway.

Thank you pros for valuable tips. Improvement upgrade is an amazing idea. Does anybody do anything else to attract good tenants?

I have searched around and would like to start a new discussion. Edmonton market now is renters market, so if you found a good tenant you need to catch him before he goes to see something else. I have property for rent right now, got killer ad which brings a lot of response and even more showings that I am willing to do, however once application form is completed, my potential tenants go to check out a few more options and go to competition. So who would had an advice on the following?

Tenants came for viewing, filled out the form, you know they might be the one you were looking for, but you still need a day to do references check ext. They also have a few more places to look at. How can you ensure they stick with you before references are checked and lease is signed? Has anyone ever done a deposit during application fill if you really like tenant or is it about being strategic with showings schedule? Or is it about your ability to sell your property? We really need help. It feels like we are missing an important step.

Ok. Let's get started. Attia family joins bigger pockets having 2 properties behind the belt

From our story below you will learn how not to start in real estate investing. We have immigrated to Canada in 2010. Year after we bought our first house and got super exited not to pay rent and invest money. My husband being very handy turn unfinished basement into guest bedroom, living room, bathroom and office. On top of it city has built a huge rec centre near by so all of a sudden we became 40 000 reacher. Got very exited about entire process and 3 years later bought another house. It had separate basement suite (not legal though) and potential to have 2 units with very decent cash flow. 

And than we started to have issues - being no educated on property management we had got very bad tenants who destroyed relationship with neighbours causing a few tickets from the city, forced demolition of oven in our second unit. So we are left with single family home which significantly dropped in the price and has no more cash flow. We tried to sell it with loss unsuccessfully so now we pay 2 mortgages which is suffocating. Now we put it on rental market again trying to get right people, but something is not working out again.

But we do not want to given up and continue our journey to become real estate investors. So we need help from pros how to turn this around. Now we want to do it right and actually learn first. That is why we are on bigger pockets