It's the one commodity nobody wants to waste.

I do have a realtor friend, but I didn't want to waste my goodwill my requesting a ton of estimates as we are starting out.I suppose I could get a general feel based on comps with just really rough numbers for adjustments to find out if the deal is worthwhile at all.

Therefore, I feel as though this first deal is a huge obstacle to overcome, but once I do the snowball effect will take place, hopefully.

I HATE debt but that mindset enabled me to build an extremely high score that, ironically, I now use to leverage my credit cards for real estate (this is something I do and wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone as you have to be extremely disciplined to do this effectively).   

I even write my own very effective 3 page hand written yellow letters...and have done a few for a couple other wholesalers :) I have to say I love everything about REI and writing my own ebooks about topics pertaining to real estate...

There will be deals in Alberta, but likely not until owners are feeling the full effect of the drop in oil on the local economies.

First find the motivation of selling, then meet that need, suggest seller financing up front, if they absolutely cannot then you'll be wasting your time and theirs.

Charging just the banks a negative rate could have the desired effect of stimulating banks to loan money if the economy is really struggling.

Sites like Zillow and RentOMeter say that my ask of $1400 for rent is near the top of the market for the area, but still reasonable for a unit of this size - and that is even without the basement.So does the basement effectively get thrown in for free?

I have been building capital to the point that I think I'm ready to start investing and could use a bit of guidance on how to either take advantage of this hot market or how to effectively invest in neighboring, more reasonable ones.