If you are planning to self managing, having new everything will reduce the number of late night phone calls to fix stuff which in my opinion is the biggest pain starting out.

I will say that my biggest success has been watching what the "big fish" are doing and than doing it better or more efficient.

The biggest hurdle would be getting the approval from the planning department.

Your biggest worry will be the difference between your adjusted basis and sale price.

.@ Glen - My biggest reason for not throwing extra cash at the principal today say your example of 10k today invested is that my interest rate is 4.25% so that money that invest today would earn less than a 4.25% return.

Biggest thing I would suggest is (if you can) create more value in the unit you are proposing.

The downside is you may be in a high (or higher) income tax bracket in retirement, so you will be paying lots of tax on your withdrawalsIf you earn a modest salary now or have a business which carries some of your living expenses (i.e. vehicle) - or have rental properties in your own name which are not producing huge cash-flow {yet} - but expect to have larger income/assets in retirement, then a {Self Directed} TFSA may be a better fit.While I have both, at the moment I keep most of may capital in my companies and only draw a minimal salary.

That was my biggest concern because I knew I was going to redo electical and plumbing.I just did a vacant house that was really in bad shape.

But I have to look into whether all of the utilities are metered separately.The biggest difficulty comes down to the duplex has to have a 75% LTV (which means a higher down payment, which would be most of my cash on hand).Any thoughts here?

The downside is they're usually limited to a five year repayment term, which is short for real estate.