All Forum Posts by: Shahriar K.

thats interesting, why did they tell me they were with holding the money because it was being sold and being used as rental. thank you for the info.

I started a discussion about the flip I did in Spokane WA, and I created a topic on that. I thought I would start a new topic on my challenges to get a refund back from IRS.
The short story is I bought a property in Nov 2014 and had it sold in Oct 2015, it was on the market for close to 3 month for sale. Anyway I was still able to make a few bucks on the flip but the reason the IRS took 10% of my sale price was because I was selling it to someone who was putting a tenant in the property, if it was owner occupied I wouldn't have had to worry about this issue( also if sale price was above $280,000 and was sold to owner occupied IRS would have taken %10 off).

right now I have started working with an accountant to get my money back. He is charging me $450 for getting the refund  and $150 for getting me a US tax number. I have to send him my purchase and sale paperwork, paperwork for everything I have spent on contractors and material. The only thing I am still trying to figure out is I don't think I can use my transportation cost as expense which I don't get why. I have to get my passport certified by Canadian passport office and send a copy over. I also have to declare how many days I have spent in USA in the past 3 years. 

So far that's all I have been asked and will update this post if there are anything else. If anyone else has the experience of what I am going through please post below and let me know if this sounds about right.

i used cash for everything, there was a US bank in Washington state that did offer mortgage to canadians but no loc forgot the name right now but decided to just do cash since the hole purchase and rehab was less than 100,000 grand. Canadian banks in US want ridiculous amount liquid cash just sitting in their bank account to give you a mortgage in US.

Thanks everyone. Just to recapp i guess things i would do if i was going to do it again.

1) Have atleast 2 contractors you can trust on. This came handy as i had to do one repair for the buyer and my usual contractor was no where to be found, i just called my other contractor to finish the job.

2) make sure you meet the neighbors and pass your contact info to them, I actually got my neighbor to cut my lawn and they would email me if anything wrong.

3)contractors again, it is important to find a trusting one, I had my realtor refer me to a inspector and since I liked the inspector asked him who he recommends as electrical who again turned out great and possibly saved me lots of money as there was a leak behind the main shutoff in the house which he saw and called me and was there when city came to repair it. 

4) buying and selling was done all from my house with scanner and email, just make sure the closing agents have docusign and you are good to go. I read every page of the contract BTW just to be on the safe side.

5) Make sure to take a picture of everything you want repaired. I sometimes sent pictures which I would highlight in Photoshop and explain what I want done.

6) I bought almost all material myself and paint etc. My wife knows interior design so she was great help in that regard.

7) I didn't haggle with my contractors over few dollars I did ask them for price of individual jobs and asked them if they could do it for this amount bulk.

8) closing if your property is worth more than 280,000 I think it is or not being sold to owner occupied IRS will take 10% of the sales price at closing, which I am in the process of getting back.

I am not buying in US since Canadian dollar has gone down alote and I do have down payment for a small multi family here I'm BC. 

@Ubaldo M Gomezit was definitely a good experience. 14 hour drives a day to just to check make sure the contractors have done what they are charging me, although I was pretty lucky with the contractors apart from some moments of going come on man it went pretty smooth. I also lucked out with the dollar not tanking before finishing the rehab so I have also made decent profit from the exchange rate. I am not looking at US market now but at multi family here in BC Canada.

Hi @Arthur Zaragoza Thats funny I was looking at greater Toronto area for properties since I might be moving there in the next 2 years :) any thoughts where to buy for $500,000 price range. As @Peter Crisp has mentioned you are coming from a very expensive place to a very expensive place. Nanaimo isn't so bad but its crazy the amount of land being developed there and new construction coming online. My dad still lives in Nanaimo and I go there every few month and can see the difference. As rental I am not sure if its great as a lot of new construction have a basement suit for rental and the rental market has become even more tough. 

Peter whats your thoughts of downtown Surrey, do you think it will one day become Vancouver downtown? there are few high rises going up around Surrey central and I am sure there is more too come but I am not sure how this will effect SFH prices that are in the area.

One place I like is Chilliwack, there has been a decent population increase but the prices aren't mad yet. Maple ridge seems to be also a market that is going in the right direction and you can still buy properties with large lots, few of my co-workers have sold their condo and bought a house in maple ridge.

Shar

Hey guys

as multi family goes I haven't dealt with any I just have a rental on my own property. What I have seen and stories I have been told is there is money to be made since there are lots of rich people that are looking to invest in fully performing properties. There was a story about a complex on Main st. that new owners bought fully renovated the complex and the rents have gone from $750 a month to close too $2000 price range. I myself am keeping an eye in Okanagan area for multi as I think there will be more and more baby boomers moving down that way.  The other thing is as long as you have the %20 down getting a mortgage isn't that hard on multis.

The meetup is called Synergy Real Estate Investment Network and @Marc Ramsay is one of the guys who runs it, it is always held in Surrey, but there is another that Marc mentioned which is held in Downtown Vancouver.

Hey @Matthew Miri I live surrey, my focus has been mostly in US market but I am looking at Multi family here in BC since our dollar is doing terrible now. Which part of Vancouver are you doing your flips in.  

Welcome to biggerpockets Aric, and its also to have another Canadian on here.

Hi @Spencer Alessi welcome to biggerpockets. I live in West coast myself and not sure what info you are trying to find but cmhc has some good info on it in regard to Canadian real estate. Give us more details and hopefully one of us Canadian can help you out.