If we moved every two or three years into a home or duplex that had been renovated so as to claim the principal residence exemption on the new property, what are the steps necessary to turn the old residence into an investment property while keeping it in our personal ownership and avoid paying...

If we start a bare-bones LP and just focus on raising money from family and friends and high net worth investors to minimize regulatory and marketing costs, can we market to the family and friends of the limited partners that we have signed up out of our own network of family and friends? If...

Does the 150/ft figure include land and soft costs like legals/plans/permits? Or hard construction costs only? Wwhen you get to including costs for roads and services for sub-division development, this figure can vary widely between bankruptcy and home run financial returns!

Thanks Rickson. There was no team really, just my partner and I, plus spouses!

Brett - thanks for the good words and congrats on your own project. I completely agree with your decision to move into development and am pursuing other projects of my own as well, this oceanfront gig is really just a two phase intro into construction starting with the renovation of existing...

Sequel to the above: The refinance happened on Tuesday. Then on Wed we closed phase II. Phase II is the intended conversion of (the neighbouring property) an oceanfront 3 story yacht storage barn into a 6 plex with 4 two bed and two one bed units. This parcel also came with a neighbouring...

I wanted to put a post on to give the numbers of a deal I just refinanced and share a couple insights I picked up. Fundamentally the post is about the returns and the learning available if you will look at projects requiring major construction. I will post this in a couple other forums to try...

Anyone who is at all serious about real estate investing should buy this book. I have bought basically every Canadian book written on real estate in the last four years, and every US book written in the last 40 about investing in apt buildings. There are very very few books like this one. One...

So far I've never actually bought a deal outside winter. I think winter is pretty great for finding bummed out sellers who want out. I especially like bank sellers who foreclosed in fall and are trying to sell in winter. There is no end to ways to renegotiate deals in winter with bankers...

My partner and I have the choice of building either a 5 or 6 unit building as part of the second phase of a development we're doing. In the first phase we did a 9 unit property and a 2 unit property next to it. The 9 unit property was valued through the income approach, the analysis was purely...

When is this literature being released? The fans are waiting ... seriously, any time line on this? PS for anyone reading this be sure to get a copy - this book will save all of us a lot of time and money!

This is a very very smart strategy that if I was to start over again I would have used. Although I wouldn't manage it myself and never let the other tenants know I own it. But if you decide to manage it yourself then you could buy building after building, another one each year or so, or if you...

You define appropriate reserves as three months mortgage, utilities, expenses and taxes? Or more? Six?

This post headed down some great tangents. For me, having spent the last year and my own capital learning how to manage large, complex renovation projects of 500-600K that is necessary to do a large apt bldg upgrade and tenant re-positioning, I can see the large sums of wealth that will result...

I fully second Thomas' post. the gap between 200 and 250 represents 25 % margin of error, if that range is even accurate. If you can't say within 10k, or say 5 % of purchase price, then you need to do more work and time in the market to be sure if its a deal. You may have a deal, but you can't...

I would bet there's a direct correlation between the number of posts someone has made and the wealth that they have managed to accumulate in real estate. However, I so often hear that ridiculous claim that 90 % of millionaires do it through real estate and its never backed up by some kind of...

The best way to get your offer accepted among competing or multiple offers is to submit your offer through the listing realtor. Nothing works quite like double-ending the commission to get the realtor working in your best interests to have the vendor accept your offer. Its just plain common...