All Forum Posts by: Philippe Busque

Why not promote your handyman and have e-mails go directly to him, then have him send you/your manager a request for approval. Get monthly or bi-monthly reports and confirm with your manager he is pulling his weight.

Lets connect.

Thank you so much. 1.5% seems to be very doable. Did you buy your current property with an agent? My next step is to contact an agent to pull out comps and to figure out the exact numbers/returns. First I am sill trying to convince my partner and open his mind about this. I am going to contact Ricky Cormier, he seems to have decent reviews and is also an investor, if you have any recommendation or reviews considering anyone you know (agent, bank, manager, anyone in the RE industry you think of as honest and hardworking) I would gladly hear them, it has insane value to me right now.

Do you plan on buying again in the upcoming future?

Hello guys, I am getting more and more interested in investing in Moncton, nb. I live in quebec city but my market does not make much sense if I want to build another income stream from RE. I'm currently house hacking a duplex in quebec city so I know what to expect from my market, but investing in moncton is very different. What do you guys think about this market right now? Vacancy rate is under 5%, which (imo) means rent should be going up in the near future and buying property right now is still affordable. It looks good from an outsider point of view but the closer I look the more I realize the 1% rule there is not enough. There are a lot of expenses, like an investment property's municipal taxe rate is about 3% (1.5% in my market), owner also pays water and sewer (included in the municipal tax of my market). I've asked some current sellers and they both told me the ongoing rate for management is around 6%, which is pretty normal but I sincerely do not trust sellers (even thought they both mentioned the same %) so been using 10%. on top of that the insurances look like they are very expensive as well, a lot of duplexes seems to be around 2000/y. My current insurance on my duplex is 800/y with close to 300k assessment value. 2k insurance on something worth 120k is insane to me. I don't even know how to consider water and sewer as an expense, since it does not exist in my market, from what I read on biggerpockets you can have unit single metered and charge tenants. The market does seem to rent all utilities (even heat) included a lot thought.

When you actually punch the numbers, given my limited knowledge, it looks like most investment rentals go up to 50%+ expenses/revenue ratio quite easily, even 60%+ when the owner pays for heat, am I correct here? It's amazing because even considering this, it still looks interesting, I just wish I could confirm my findings and learn more about this market but since this is in canada, I can't find much.

The way banks see buildings expenses on 4 plexes and lower here is pretty simple and it's surprising how accurate and general it is.

Expenses: your insurance, your taxes and heating/electricity + 15% of rents operating cost (sums up snow removal, maintenance, vacancy, marketing pretty well in most major cities). Keep in mind this does not factor a manager for 4plexes and lower, so you are buying yourself a part time job.

There is no point buying RE without dept if you want to build wealth. Some people keep their asset unleveraged but it usualy is used in wealth keeping situation, meaning they already are rich, just looking to park money. 

Honestly you should learn about the financial market if you believe leverage is too risky & obviously take what dave ramsey said about leverage with a grain of salt. He got greedy and got burned, does not mean it's not a great tool.

if he was a scammer he would do the opposite. He would be putting pression on you instead of being casual/nonchalant.

Of course proceed with caution but what you described is the kind of seller we should all try to find, obviously tired of dealing with the property, probably open to negotiate with someone serious. If he isnt willing to negotiate, try again in a few weeks.

 This is the key. Go to a stock forum and people will argue for stocks. Here people will defend RE. On the stocks forum they will tell you all about how their uncle bought a 4units and sold it at a loss because he could not stand going there once a month at 3 am to unclog the toilet.

They are doing it right, they dont know **** about RE, they know stocks, so they invest there.

In reality his uncle bought at market value because his agent told him it was a good deal and he isn't making any cashflow, doesn't have a repair budget and the whole situation is just a nightmare so he cut his losses. Selective memory is a big deal. Everyone has different experiences and opinions and sometimes just a little bit of luck (or badluck) changes a whole situation.

That being said, I don't know much about stocks, I know 10% return is killing it... and to be fair I could wipe my *** with a 10% ROI. The househack I have right now would take 132k capital in stocks to give me the same annualized 10% returns. It cost me around 18k.

My experience and luck has been very positive, I couldve easily been that uncle. 

The problem/challenge is actually finding properties that make sense, its damn easy to burn yourself.

There is so much value into converting from hot water to electrical in our market. Was the negotiation with the tenants hard? I also understand your market audience being casual landlords with 1 or 2 properties, makes senses. 

Thank you for taking the time to make this thread and share your insight. I will send you some rough numbers tonight, check them out whenever you can there is no rush. Id just like your opinion on a few details that are very "quebec" specific.

Honestly you just blew my mind. Very impressive, is this all in directly in Montreal? Fun to read about someone so close to me who's actually doing it.

There is a lot of heat in montreal, you definitively need a special skillset to be able to find deals there. How do you find the owner of a property you found driving for dollars if it's owned by a company? 

Do you buy single metered complexes ever? 

I have a potential multifamily deal and I'm meeting a potential partner in 2 weeks to talk about it, are you open to giving me your opinion if I send you the numbers in private?