Condo rules are strong on this one and enforceable. Bylaws are very easy to change.

Personal property is currently capital gains exempt. When it becomes a source of income, the market value when it starts to be rented (get a CMA or appraisal) is the starting cost basis. Higher appraisal you can get the better.

Calgary / Edmonton for industrial Toronto / Vancouver for office (especially development) - if you can get your head around the economics. Tech companies are seriously investigating these markets, as they should be. Multi in Canada right now - hard to justify buying in place as cheaper to...

Way too many people on this tiny deal. What a mess! As noted by @CorySperle above, one real estate expert. - up front acquisition fee - the % split to equity is way to low especially for tiny deals Realistic economics: - Equity gets 14% preferred return + ROC (return of capital) - 70% to...

I think it is a good think that rental rates are growing. It is a good alternative to owning despite pretty poor renter rights in most of the country. (LL can raise rents to any level). Also, renting is a good check on price to rent ratios - right now the rent v. buy says rent in most areas of...

@ThomasBeyer those numbers are a bit sensationalist...usually UDI puts out more objective, reasonable data than this. The cost is closer to $76,000 / unit on average. Even at $76,000 per unit - that is a lot. Depends on what the money is going towards to determine if that is good value, but it...

Uhh... those are not good answers guys. There is a time to buy, hold, sell every asset. Some assets are uninvestable. There is no short position that can be taken in SFH. Holding a SFH in Fraser Valley is destined to be a cash suck. Yields are too low, maintenance and cyclicals too high...

@ThomasBeyer do you have the UDI source for that increase in development costs?

Some good points for sure. I'd like to see a return to the LD (limited dividend) program Canada ran years ago. This would provide an excellent investment product and stream of income, get operators engaged to operate and build, then get the residual building value afterwards. Costs nothing...

Thanks for sharing the article Thomas. I'm a bit skeptical about "time is money" argument these days, as interest rates are so low the interest carry is fairly inconsequential to the actual decision. The real variable in my mind is that uncertainty and politicizing zoning process that raises...

Real estate structure needs to be below A for sure. Structure for LP described above needs to consider LP and GP, usually you have separate vehicles for the LP and GP. You will probably want a separate GP entity if you are the controlling owner and have some form of waterfall / promote...

An interesting source for this discussion is CBRE’s global living report: https://www.cbre.com/research-and-reports/Global-Living---a-City-by-City-Guide-2017 If you check out the map on page 3, note that Vancouver has the highest average home price in North America. That means higher than New...

@ThomasBeyer I'm not sure where you got major correction from.... I said pricing is out of control. Because it is. In terms of cost for value, if you look at a city in terms of a global / North American scale instead of Canada scale where the choices are A or B. Comparing Vancouver to Beijing...

There are a couple sides to this one... On a global scale, I think Vancouver has one of the worst value propositions and street life for the cost of living there. For the cost of living, the streets are pretty much dead with limited amenities and podiums empty. A pretty boring city. There are...

The $750 rents are market in that dogshit market. Multi-family brokers are the least reliable brokers in commercial RE in my opinion and have run up the market with wild assumptions. Canada multifamily market is ~60% private investors. For these small deals, it isn't necessary for a broker to...

No. Unless you are in a treasured area your financing options will be slim. If it is neighbourhood strip centre with C-grade tenants could be 40% down. Commercial usually begins at 30%. Could be very different with an excellent A-grade tenant. The apartment piece to too small to really think...

As per above... not really. (Meaning you can't pull out RRSP's for personal direct investment) If you want to direct invest in projects that you run and operate to my knowledge you can't do that with RRSP's without paying substantial tax. I'd personally not advise direct investment with one...

What are the deal economics: Cap rate Cash flow yield What is the 3, 5, 7 year IRR? How much cap ex required? What is the business plan for the building? What does the exit to condo look like?

This isn't too bad. Something actually has to do something wrong to file with the courts, so keep that in mind as you take cautious steps here. 1. A standard lease contract that is joint and several is obviously far better than a roommate contract. Don't use those, glad you didn't here. Your...

This seems like a good strategy in Mexico City where internet usage is not as prevalent for selling homes and a lot of sales are completed by walking the neighbourhood and looking at signs. This is a very outdated strategy that flies in the face of pretty much all property and submarket level...