All Forum Posts by: Stevo Sun

Hi all! 

First off THANK YOU to all the posters on the BP forum. I only discovered the podcast + platform about 10 months ago and was immediately hooked! It's from reading your posts and listening to the show that I managed to get my act together and buy my first place in North America.

I recently purchased my first investment in Edmonton Canada, a duplex where I have rented out the other unit (Closed on 1st June 2024 / $475k CAD price paid / 5% down payment). It's an older property and I haven't made any improvements yet as it was in great condition.

I'm trying to expedite the process of moving on to my next deal, although I will very likely need to put down 20% this time as it will be an investment property rather than a house hack. I'm trying to figure out how I can best finance my next deal without having to wait for either:

- getting together 20% cash downpayment

- waiting 12 months until I can do another 5% down on my next house hack

I'm looking for buy and hold so from what I've read short term financing (eg. for a fix and flip) likely isnt the best for my needs.
If it's useful info I have access to ~$60k line of credit at about 9% a year, and another $35k in credit card credit available (although no suggesting I'd use this to finance a deal). Very high credit score.

I gather majority of people are in USA and not Canada, but definitely appreciate any input you might have for an newer investor looking to keep the momentum train moving along. 

Thanks again and happy Sunday!

I am wanting to do a cash-out/refi on a property 

CRA is auditing my 2022 taxes, bank won't initiate an application if taxes show owing. I have sent everything back to CRA and expect full amount owing to be reversed. But this will likely take months.  

Anyone have experience with a situation like this or any workarounds? 

P.S. if this was only a couple thousand dollar audit I would just pay CRA and then they'd refund me once they've finished re-assessment. 

Hey all, does anyone know of a good deal analysis calculator for Canada? Even just an accurate rent estimator would be huge. Thanks in advance!

Hey there, I'm avidly reading about wholesaling in Canada and I was wondering what are the mechanism in place to protect yourself as a the wholesaler if the buyer doesn't come through or if the deal falls off. How do you protect yourself from having the responsibility to buy the house you were "representing"?

Thanks! 

@Sat Palshetkar Welcome to the RE world and congradulations on jumping in. If you are planning on living there (ie in 1 unit) then you are house-hacking and this is a different calculation consideration then renting out both units and making it a true investment. If you are living there, then you need to weigh the benefits of having a home, as oppose to renting somewhere else. Your calculations should include utililies and repairs, legals, snow removal, etc. Keep in mind if you are house-hacking, you will only be able to write off a percentage of the bills. Even if you are negative cash flowing but living there, it may be worth it, as you are not paying rent to someone else. You need to consider how long you will live there. Anything less than 5 years may not be worth it. 

Will this property allow for Bill 23? If you are not going to leave there at all, and you can't do Bill 23 or have any value-add to get to positive cash flow, then NO, don't do it. 

As a side note: my 1st place was also a house-hack. Best financial move I made. 

Hey,

I'm a first time investor in real estate and my wife and I are planning to invest (with house hacking) in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Our agent is very helpful and found us a great deal (duplex). I wanted to share the numbers and want to make sense if it's a good deal for us according to what we are looking for.

Price: $450k (agent said that we can get it down to $420k)
2 Units (1 bedroom in each unit)
Mortgage with 3 year fixed comes up to around $2.3k
Insurance and tax is roughly $400
Rent per unit is $1.4k so if we move out then total rent comes up to $2.8k
There's a detached ADU (garage) that can give us another $100-$150 if we rent it for storage and there's a scope of converting it into another unit later on.

So currently rough calculation says that it can cashflow up to $300 per month. But my question is that if we consider other operating costs like maintenance, capital expenditure, vacancy, etc then this property won't cash flow, so is this a good deal? Am I stretching this too much by adding these operating costs?

So, if anyone search why doesn't Canada have 30 year fixed, the first article says they attach all your assets as collateral /lien.

Seems like getting a mortgage is a big deal, but is it true you will lose everything you own if you default (with Canadian mortgage)?

Thanks Stevo, I appreciate the reply and you could do it that way however, it doesnt really solve the problem of a potential runaway water bill from say a toilet left running while the tenant is on vacation somewhere or some other problem where water is left on or leaking. I have heard a few stories in the news over the years where the bill is in the tens of thousands or worse. Thats what scares me.