Hi All, Pierre Paul from the multi family investing side recently had an interesting example of a foreclosed 21 unit multi family property in Edmonton that he recently bid on. He put a description of this up on his website as part of a blog post about how to value buildings. In this case, the...

I am reading this right now and find it both well written and along with its partner book by Ian Szabo extremely good value. These two books sit right near the top of my worth their weight in gold pile. I would guess I own or have read every book written on apartment building investing written...

Whenever I read a post like this I always feel like people are missing what to me is the most important thing to understand when choosing what to invest in. If its less than 5 or 6 units, you and your job are the security. When its 20 units, or just 6, its the building. When the building becomes...

The location is actually about as good as you could hope to get for semi-urban oceanfront, a very rare beast to find at reasonable price. The market is basically a historic fishing village that is getting swallowed up in urban sprawl, and the property is a direct 8 km commute to downtown...

We have a great deal under contract that for the 1st phase is a repositioning of 11 C class units to A- class. The bank asked for an appraisal which came back confirming we're getting assets below market. We gave that to the bank two days ago. Close is Dec 4th. They also know that we have a P&S...

"We had that same debate 5 years ago before we bought a large Texas based asset." - BTW, having visited that Texan asset of yours in Denton, I thought the choice of sub-market was really excellent. If I had to pick one spot in Texas Denton would be for sure in the top 5 and maybe the top 1 in...

What would be the best way to do that? If i'm moving Cdn $$$ to the US to buy, and hedging it by somehow borrowing US $$$$ to ship to Cda to buy assets in Cdn $$$, then it seems like that would work so long as transactional costs are reasonable. I guess the easy solution (at least easy to say)...

I totally agree with the thinking that the asset is indeed the hedge however more accurately it is the debt that is the hedge rather than the asset. Thomas you mentioned that while you can get 30 yr debt at sub 5 % rates that will serve as the ultimate insurance, you observed that this long...

Clearly we're in the RE business and yes, we do plan to use 1031's for tax free compounding etc. However, whether its sooner or later the money still needs to be repatriated as you point out. It could be 20 years down the road, and whenever its done you also have a risk of the currency...

There are factors worth investigating in the US in the right markets and hedging against the inflation risk of getting repaid in devalued dollars then just becomes a cost of doing business to add to the margins. How much do we need to add? What's the realistic long-term cost of adding hedging...

I'm loving the situation right now for Canada but there are still factors worth investigating in the US in the right markets. Hedging then just becomes a cost of doing business and its one I'm willing to add to the already conservative margins I need in a deal to bother going to the next step...

I agree with the risks identified, especially currency and political risk (hello taxes on out of country owners). However, the ability to use 1031 exchanges to move money around in the 330 million person market of the US without triggering taxes and hopefully capturing some of the apparently...

Adam's last observation was insightful as usual - how many cities are seeing large purpose built student housing developments? If Waterloo is seeing massive development in this area, to me that says that pension fund or other insitutional money has really woken up to the outsize returns in...

Great question and sadly one of the few that pertain to larger multi family on this board. Halifax is my stomping ground, or rather, secondary markets around it. I don't pay attention to cap rates a whole lot though as its all about the cash on cash for me. I like safety and don't buy at less...

Thanks again for all the informed and valuable inputs. The thing I find so hard to quantify in this deal is the waterfront element. I never expected to get an oceanfront property plus jetty plus 6 townhouses for so cheap - 750K! So I ask you guys as seasoned investors: this is awesome ocean...

A partner and I have a waterfront deal under contract that includes an option on a neighbouring piece of waterfront, both zoned commercial or multi fam. We are considering approaching neighbours to see if we could option their land to assemble a large waterfront piece to take to developers. Does...

I've got a 22 unit townhouse property under contract for 850 K. 30 year old homes, 25 % vacancy, seller is giving 90 % VTB for one year to allow me to invest the downpayment into upgrades to fill the empty units. If I sort out the vacancy issue I can get the rents up and revenue increased to...

I've talked to many people now about the various real estate models for generating revenue. Once one learns how to invest one's own money, then you learn how to raise money from others. That money pushes the track record along. The next step is figuring out how to get others to pay you to learn...