All Forum Posts by: Paul Sverdlin

 Hi Stevo, what is your group name and link?

Hi Italy, 

I have a house in Barrie, and multiple rentals in other places. Thus far had only 1 tenant in a situation similar to what you describing: the wife left and the husband turned the place into a mess and had to be "dealt with". I ended up paying him one month rent to leave, with no eviction process nor missed rents. One bad case out of hundreds - not too bad, considering out tenant-friendly laws.

The key to a good tenant relationship to me starts with a conversation. The application and a credit score are important, yet in some cases they don't even have a credit score since they are new immigrants; in other cases their score is crap due to a divorce or student debt issues from years ago they are working on improving, etc. So my recommendation is to talk to people: why are they moving, have they already lived together, is there someone else they plan to bring to live with them (kids, parents, friends), do they have pets, how long they've been at their job, do they like their job, if they have kids - what extracurricular activities do those kids do, and so on and so forth. Its just a good chat, but it allows you to understand their story, their overall outlook on renting, their motivation, their values if I can say that. Its almost like a job interview: lots of people have the skills to do the job, but will they be a fit? 

There are no guarantees of course, but if you layer a good chat on top of the strong application - usually results are better than just the application with a decent credit score.

Re: #1. Listing agent does reduce risk. Typically its the more stable and likely more financially savvy tenants who will think of working with a realtor. However, it also depends a lot on the realtor since some of them just want the place rented as quick as possible and may not do a full on diligence for you. Also, they do cost quite a bit. I prefer to go without one, although for a downtown Toronto condo or an Ottawa central location I would consider paying 1/2 month rent to a realtor who brings me a tenant. Post your ad on listedbyseller.ca for $150 and it will show up on mls and realtor.ca. Then wait for them to bring you applicants while you keep searching on your own through FB and kijiji. 

And please, hire a professional to do property pictures. An iPhone just won't do the trick. Great pics attract better quality tenants. If someone great is looking to rent in your area, they are likely to be accepted by all of your competition. You want them to click on your ad, not on others. The fee for a pro is about $150 which you pay once and use those images for decades. 

Trust this helps,

Paul

Hey Boden,  I am in Toronto, been investing in single family in Ottawa for the last 4 years. The prices in TO are sky high compared to Ottawa. It is also a very stable market and a next-largest hub for immigration outside of GTA.

Let's connect, perhaps we can learn from each other!

@Kory Louvelle @Pierre-Frederick Gauthier

Great post Kory. I am in Toronto, been investing in single family in Ottawa for the last 4 years or so and also been looking to expand into multi-family. The prices in TO are sky high compared to Ottawa. It is also a very stable market and a next-largest hub for immigration outside of GTA.

It is easy to say "just jump into it". With 15 years of investing behind me, I'd say it is quite possible to loose big money investing in real estate. When those losses go into hundreds of thousands, the recovery takes years if not decades. It also prevents one from participating in other deals, stalling any progress and emotionally draining the entrepreneur in you. Thus I fully support your choice of going with books and courses prior to jumping in.

How to start: my approach would be to start slow. A 3-plex or a 4-plex would be a decent entry point. There are a lot of legal issues around being a landlord in Ontario, something our US friends can't usually appreciate. Having a portfolio of SFR in Ohio I can tell that its a night and day to be a landlord in US vs. Canada.

Let's connect, perhaps we can do something jointly!

MF in a C area will bring headaches. It will be better cashflowing, yet will also require more maintenance, renovations when tenants turn over, searching for new tenants, potentially evictions, etc. On the other hand SFR in a prime location will be easy to rent and likely have no hustle, but it won't cashflow nearly as much if at all. In terms of appreciation - I find that both will appreciate roughly by the same % over time. Some years one will win over the other. Long term appreciation will even out.

So it all depends on your tolerance for dealing with tenants, on your time horizon and on the plan for the property. Is it a lifetime keeper, a quick flip, a turnaround story? Many factors will go into that decision.

Check out my youtube channel Ascending Abundance where I aim to share my experience of striving towards financial freedom. Ascending Abundance

Credit check in Canada is not as easy to obtain as BP books may suggest. Asking a tenant to provide one is usually met with a blank stare since tenants either have a bad history which they would like to hide, or more commonly they are just clueless on how to obtain an Equifax report. What complicated matters more is that EQ does not allow for 1-time report check, it requires people to sign up for monthly billing which then needs to be stopped by calling EQ directly. In some cases tenants become furious that I am not happy with just a "score" from Credit Karma, they are not comfortable sharing the entire credit report with a stranger. Even more frustrating is the fact that a poor score of 601 can be labelled as "fair" by Credit Karma. Tenants don't realize that "fair" goes not mean good or excellent, they just think they have a fair score and get upset when I turn them down.

For now I keep asking them to pull it and even offer to pay them $25 if it turns out their score is actually good. People with nothing to hide and with enough smarts to pull a score usually are better tenants; its worth the trouble of asking. 

Note that a bad score is rarely a rejection point in itself for me. There are many special situations like a divorce that could have affected someone's score. I talk to people, look for honesty in responses and consistency in the story they tell, sometimes that's worth way more than a "good" score in itself.

Finally, you can ask them to fill out an application through Naborly website ($25), however in my experience few people would go through the trouble of uploading their documents, filling out all the forms and paying $25 just to apply for a place.

Gloria, have you contacted a local realtor? I gave a name in a private message a few days ago. 

That’s great. Thank you for clarifying.

@Nuno Barbosa 

Would you mind opening up a bit on the strategies for opportunities just around Toronto. I'm constantly looking around and cashflowing deals seem to be hard to come by. Duplex conversions is one option that seems to be ok for now. Would be fantastic to see what else is working these days.

I am sorry, but can we not play mind games and rather talk about actual experiences of people who have proven strategies in the market that we are in?