QUOTE (Rascal @ May 19 2008, 12:56 PM) Is anyone investing in Drumheller? Any information that you could give me on the market there would be helpful.
Thanks.
As Sonia had mentioned above, my husband and I have invested in Drumheller for sometime now. The "boom" has already happened here a couple of years ago. The market is a bit slower right now but definately a good time to buy....people that are in need of selling their properties are starting to panic and are lowering prices. Although there is much agricultural and some oilfield, another driver in this area is the penitentiary....and that is a constant. Much of the town is employed on top of the hill. If you are offering a good quality property it is not hard to rent. All of our tenants have been with us anywhere from 1 year to 5 years. Most are the same tenants from when we bought the houses. Most make good income and look after their own properties, but they just find that the houses that they REALLY want to buy are just slightly out of their reach. So they stay. I think they are lifers!
The duplexes that were mentioned on the East side...if I am thinking of the same ones, are 55+ housing (adult community). Over by the highschool, across from Wal-mart. But there are definately some new developments happening in the area, Bob can tell you more about that
The houses that we purchase do not have a/c units (as mentioned above) unless they put it in themselves, and all the utilities are paid by the tenants. Temperatures are really only a couple of degrees above Calgary. Our rents range anywhere from $775 to $900 but those will all be increased shortly. And these of course are on houses that are valued anywhere from $125 to $150k. These same houses 6 years ago were worth ~$40k to $55k. So I would say that the housing prices have already gone up and at starting to come back to normal. The town has just started doing reassessments on property taxes from what I can see, and one of mine is very inflated (based on the 2007 market) but all my others are still extremely under valued (according to the town), so I am not going to make mention for fear of drawing attention to the others. Water prices are set to increase shortly. So some costs are increasing but all in all, expenses are fairly low.
I think this to invest in this area completely depends on the type of investment that you are looking for. If you want a something that cash flows nicely and has a steady (but slower then the major city centres) increase in value, and the tenant pays your mortgage, then you can definately find that here. Because the prices are lower then Calgary or Edmonton, it can also be easier to get into the market. Not a bad choice if you don`t have a JV partner or lots of money to put down on a place to make it cash flow.