All Forum Posts by: Ron Sharp

My wife and I have a small cabin in a tourist town that is season, usually mid May to early September. The place is similar to Banff in AB. It's right downtown on the strip. Here's the thing, it's mixed commercial and main selling point is the commercial side. It has a 500sqft apartment attached that the owner started renting out last year. It's an older couple and I don't think they see the true potential in renting it out. I think it can get about $160-$180/night, a bit last in May and September. It's quite busy in summer so I can't even guess how many nights a month it will be booked. It's hard to do any compatibles near by as well as there is just a couple of hotels where I guess the sqft is around 250sqft, and individual cabins which are also in quite bad shape and quite small themselves. They rent for similar pricing. 

Rough financials they gave (waiting for real ones) profit from their shop store front is about $40,000, that's with them working there and occasional help. The place is quiet in early May and Sept-Oct but can still be rented out cheaply and get the odd stay I assume.

1) I don't have a rental and don't even really know where to start to even try and guess what I can rent the place out for and more importantly what vacancy rates would be in seasonal tourist towns. Is 20 of 30 days a month a good estimate?

2) I don't really want to work in the store very much so would be hiring staff. The potential is there to be quite profitable, but could be a lot of work even if I'm just managing it. Although would be pretty neat to have a place for my kids to work in a few years when they are older.

3) It's in a government park so I'm not quite sure what the rules are but I even thought about converting the store front to an apartment (700sqft) and renting that out if the park allows it. That way I don't have to worry about staff but only about keeping it clean. The lot is a fair size in town and could accommodate a hot tub which I also thought about, as there really aren't any around there. Could be a good selling feature.

I don't even know how it works, if it's mixed use commercial and business lease is based on 5% of yearly revenues, I wonder what is to stop me from claiming no profit, and renting out both sides. The current owner said lease based on revenue is not from the apartment rental. Though if I do construction to renovate I would need park approval so they could deny it.

The place is listed for $410,000 and I'm sure I could get a bit off of that as it's been sitting for a while.

I just wanted to throw it out there and maybe people with more experience could chime in.

I almost see it as you can't go wrong with it. Just renting the apartment I feel would cover most the mortgage. But with all the rentals around, how has no one else thought of it

I couldn't find anything with search but how do mortgages work as a Canadian looking to invest in US properties? Are they harder to get? More steps?

Thanks for all the help. How do you determine the mortgage rate for calculations? I mean ours is 3% right now but who knows what it will be in five years, 15 years, etc.

I see guys here posting crazy deals of like a 4 unit MF for $200,000 and renting for $2800. There's nothing remotely close to that here.

There is one 4 unit MF here I was looking at for $360,000.  Rent total is $2850/month.

Other costs:

taxes: $270

Insurance: $216

Utilities: $363

Vacancy 5%: $142.50

Maintenance 5%: $142.50

Capex 5%: $142.50

Total monthly expenses: $1276.50

NOI: $1573.50

Money down: $71,000

Total Mortgage: $284,000

Mortgage Payment: $1344 but that's at 3%.

That would leave me with $229.50 cashflow per month.

What if mortgage rates go up? All the sudden there's no cashflow?

@Jay Hinrichs THanks. That's kinda the info I'm looking for. I guess my initial post was because I saw some people post some really good deals they got, and I can't find anything like that. So wanted to know if theirs was the norm or not.

I just more so meant the breakdown of purchase, repairs, utilities, rent etc. I came here assuming people freely helped, not scretive about their spreadsheets, when it's all numbers that are given and can only be one outcome, I didn't even think there were private spreadsheets. I know the US is a large market that's whY I was hoping to see a variety of different properties bought. The success forum has some, but it's hard to sift through them so I was hoping some people could post some of theirs. Guess not.

@Jay Hinrichs

To ask what people paid and charge rent for on some of their deals is a lot to ask?

Can some of you that have some properties post some of the numbers with successful purchases so I can study them and get an idea of what they look like in different areas? I'm starting to get the feeling my city is quite expensive after reading some threads from other members.

I'd love to see your spread sheets or calculations that have everything broken down so I compare my area. Thanks.

I must have calculated my mortgage wrong, I had it around $300/month. That's about the cheapest houses in our city .

Does anyone here have any experience with proerties in rough neighborhoods? They obviously have the cheapest housing, but obviously less desirable tenants for the most part. Wondering if the damage and late/no pay is worth the cheaper housing? There are houses here for $90-$100k that can be rented for $850.

@Roy N.

Thanks for the reply. I did include a $3000/year maintenance in the price. I didn't think about lawn care and snow removal though, good points.