All Forum Posts by: Ralph Noack

I would also like to suggest that perhaps the title of this thread may be a bit misleading. It is an entirely different matter to look for the cheapest investment than to find the most bang for your buck. I wouldn't want the properties that are the cheapest investments. I've looked at those. They're nasty. I want properties that produce really well for the money that I invest in them: the sweet spot. 

Brantford has been quite good for us. Our purchases so far in the last 3yrs:

8 bedroom Rooming house that we converted into 3 very nice apts. paid $285 in 2017

1200 SF bungalow  (18 Mo. ago for $390,000) built a secondary suite in the basement with rents of $1700  & $1775 per month

1050 Sf bungalow 1 yr ago for $375,000 built a secondary suite in the basement$1625 & $1750 rents appraised at $540,000

Just purchased a triplex for $411,000. Going to do it up nice & refi out of it for another BRRRR. We'll charge big rents & hoping to get an ARV of $700,000 when done.

As for Hamilton & Brantford tenents, yes it is a difficult pool to select from. Diligence. Check every reference you can. We're still learning. Had to evict 2 units this fall because we didn't do enough due diligence. Not fun, but necessary. Just a blip in the bigger picture. However, as people are moving further away from the GTA (often COVID related) the tenant pool should improve as rentals become too expensive & the ones that can only afford cheap have to move on to different cities. Its part of being in a groundbreaking business. We price our rents as high as possible just to weed out certain types of people. Its not a guarantee but it helps.

Brantford is pretty good.

But a crazy market as last week we decided not to put in a price on another bungalow (for another basement suite). We were just too busy. Perfect house. Built in the 1960's, hasn't been upgraded since it was built. Listed for $399,000 sold for $529,000.

Good time to be an agent. Don't have to work very hard for your money.

@Steve Morris-  A Vendor Take Back. The Seller (the vendor) holds part or all of the mortgage for you. In our case its an estate sale. So the heir(s) are selling the house.

I'm trying to see if anyone has had experience in this situation.

I found a nice deal in our market (Brantford, Ontario) and I'm looking at other options outside of traditional financing, esp. for the downpayment. I know a lot of people have used the VTB. Just looking for input on whether it could work for an estate sale or not.

Thanks.

We received a $50,000 loan for about 8 months at 10 or 12%

He is a great friend.

We were thinking around $200

I know that we will end up using his money again on future deals

I bought a house last week while driving out of town for 5 days. I literally was signing an offer on Docusign in a parking lot halfway to my destination. I got the call to let me know that we got the house that evening. Now I'm out of town & Friday night. I have to get a $10,000 deposit cheque to the selling agent's office the next day.

I call my friend that has done some loaning to me before. I asked him to get a cheque to the agent & thankfully he did.

It was not discussed how much I would compensate him for this.

$10,000 for 1 week. 

What should I give him above & beyond the $10,000?

Seems like a discussion with the police may be a good route to go. I have no intention of refunding him any more money. He has lots of bad intentions toward me. Sounds like (from his texts) that he's going to 'hold me hostage' until I give him what he thinks he should get. And then, I suppose he could carry on with being a nuisance if he so chooses.

Throughout his tenancy, he was never the problem.

The smell of pot was obviously coming from their apt. At first, it was their guests, then it was the guy in the back apt. When his co-tenant moved out in July, he was quick to blame the guy that moved out of his apt. (his own friend). Then he blamed the neighbour to the rear. The week before the eviction happened, he sent us a pic. of the next-door neighbour's yard. There's a 6' tall pot plant in his yard, and he took the pic from his 2nd floor window. "There's the proof we need. Stop harassing me." he says. "Its coming from the next-door neighbour."

When they moved in, they severely damaged a door frame & some walls & trim by trying to put a much-too-large couch into a bedroom. When they moved out I was blamed for a poor layout of the apt. The house was built in 1885, I changed nothing in regards to the bedrooms. I said that you didn't have to take this apt. When you looked at it you said it was great. The response was "We had to take it. The way the market was, there was nothing else available. We were forced to take it."

A guy that takes no responsibility for his own actions. Every problem of his is someone else's fault. No sense in trying to talk sensibly to someone like that.

Hey BP, Looking for your best bits of wisdom...

We have a triplex in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.

We successfully evicted our tenants about 2 weeks ago. The reason for the eviction was because they were smoking cigarettes & pot in our building. Both are legal here but in our lease, it states that its a non-smoking/vaping/drug-use building, which they signed. The eviction was to happen in March, but COVID  shut down the Landlord Tenant Board, meaning no hearings or evictions were taking place.

Fortunately, our tenants paid all their rents. Despite notification from the Sherriff's office that the Sherriff was coming on a certain day to remove the tenants, for some reason they did not open their mail & when the Sheriff came, it was a complete surprise to the tenant. I think he & his girlfriend were awoken by the knock on the door when the Sherriff arrived.

The summer was full of spiteful emails/texts from the tenant, while we did our best to keep a professional approach.

During the eviction, the tenant was verbally abusive toward the Sherriff, me & my wife. Quite nasty actually. Also threats of retaliation and even physical threats against me.

Kudos to the Sherriff's office. He came in and said "You have 15 minutes to pack an overnight bag & get yourself, your girlfriend & dog out of the premises & off of the property. You no longer have access to this property." Very efficient.

They came back 2 days later to retrieve their belongings.

We squared up with them with regards to any leftover money from the last month's rent. All supported with documentation, citing sections of the lease as to why they are getting less than what they expected. Also included an accounting of every payment that they made to us.

Since the night of them removing their belongings & not getting as much back as they hoped for, we have been inundated with over 100 texts; each one very rude, filled with insults at me & my wife, threats of violence, extremely lewd comments (most sexually degrading). They are so crass that I instructed my wife that she is not to read them.

It alternates between sending insults and demanding his money back.

Despite our detailed accounting explaining the numbers, in 100+ texts, he has not given any reason as to why he thinks he should get more money refunded nor stated an amount. Simply, "I want my money."

They were tenants for just over a year. It took all of 2 months before we started the eviction process. They were bad news from the start. Ontario, being a very tenant-friendly jurisdiction, allowed this to drag on for far too long, giving appeals at will. And of course, Covid didn't help either.

So now we're at 2 weeks since the eviction & I would call the endless barrage of rude texts to be harassment at the very least. But I need to move on. I'd like to show the apartment to potential new tenants. He's threatening to be on the road telling people what horrible landlords we are, reply to our ads & generally be a pain in the backside.

I"m 53. He's 26. He has mental health issues as well, as he has stated earlier. I know many people that would have beaten the crap out of this guy for the things he has said. I haven't thrown a fist since I was in grade 8.  I'm not stooping to his level. I've not even responded once to his ridiculous texts. I've always had a policy that I don't respond to abuse. Any time that we have tried logic, it has not been received well. So my hands are kinda tied.

Somehow I need to be able to set up that apartment with A) getting it cleaned & ready to rent, B) showing prospective tenants, & C) giving an apartment to someone that will feel safe there.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Anyone been through something similar? Any better outcome?

Thanks for any insights you may have.

Ralph Noack
Brantford, Ontario

I think the OHRC is still vague -  "Income information should be limited to confirming that the person has enough income to cover the rent" In my understanding a persons income has to cover all sorts of expenses in addition to rent so if I expect an individuals rent to be enough to cover rent I would take into account that their income can't be used exclusively for rent. I would suggest that your list of qualifying standards include a suggested rent ratio, a good credit score, and a positive rental history of paying rent on time and in full. All of these have to be balanced out because there are great tenants that give priority to paying for the roof over their head, that might fail in one of these qualifiers.

You are allowed to ask for income information and use it as part of your screening process. If you think their income won't enable them to pay for rent, check with their current and previous landlords and ask whether they consistently pay rent on time and in full. You can also look at their credit history which will show if they make late payments to other debts (credit cards, loans..). If this additional information is not available you can use income as the sole source of screening.

" -Income information can only be considered on its own when no other information is made available." OHRC