Book came for Christmas, I read it, one word....AWESOME!! I find myself going back and reading parts of it again. Full of great information. A must read for all real estate investors! Thanks Thomas

Can't wait for Christmas!! It is on my list......and if Santa doesn't bring it I will invite him to a REIN meeting and we will educate him.... :)

I was kind of leaning towards Leduc. It is just so close to Nisku and all the oilfield activity there, plus the airport of course. Thanks for your feedback!

Just wondering if people have any opinions on Leduc and Spruce Grove. If there were 2 identical houses in similar communities, which town would you pick and why? Thanks in advance for your opinions! (and facts)

Thanks for the encouragement! Haven't ruled it out just yet, but I do plan to make a couple of moves that will include more "passive" income. I like the idea of the extra income, but it is a tough decision. I currently work away from home on a 7 day on/ 7 day off shift, so when there are issues...

Great point about insurance. I've been tossing it around and I don't know that room rental is for us. Although we do have more time available now to manage, we aren't always available at a moments notice. I like the idea of the employer lease though, we did have good luck with that when we...

Thanks for the reply. I have thought of the parking issue, for that reason I've been trying to find older homes in good shape that still have back alley access. I like the fact that it leaves me the option of doing a fix and flip if we decide that room rentals aren't our cup of tea or the demand...

I recently had a vacancy in my upper suite and discovered that there is huge demand for room rentals in the neighbourhood that I invest in thanks to jobs in the area. I've never given this method much consideration until now, it didn't really appeal to me because it sounded like a hassle to...

Excellent choice in becoming an electrician!.....I started my electrical trade on my first day out of high school and it has been one of the best decisions of my life. Of course another great decision was buying real estate so I don't have to be an electrician forever..... :)

I posed a similar question when I bought my rental and got some good responses. Here is a link to my post: http://myreinspace.com/public_forums/f/62/t/23943.aspx Most people recommended splitting the utilities between the tenants (personally I think 60% upstairs 40% down would be...

Thank you all for your replies. Now I need to go find the best lender around!

So I'm starting to kick tires and look for my next rental property. Currently I have $40K in cash and $55K available on my personal residence HELOC. I have heard that in order for your HELOC to count as "cash" for down payment purposes you have to actually take it out and put the money in a...

Thanks for the feedback!! We had an agreement with our tenant that he would at least give us names/contact info of his roommate, but in one case the roommate didn't even have a phone. Once all the smoke clears on this I will be talking to him about this again. The update for today is the dog...

Hi all, I have a bit of a strange situation and was wondering how others might handle it. I rent out a basement suite to a guy who has a job operating heavy equipment on an oilfield site. He is my best tenant I've had so far, he is a former home builder and former landlord himself. The...

Hi all, Just wondering if anyone can recommend a realtor in Carstairs Alberta. Thanks

Thanks for the great feedback. I've always wondered why you don't seem to hear of people building to rent, if anything a developer does the building then investors might buy directly from them....let them put up the big money I guess!! It sounds like I definitely don't have enough down...

I have an opportunity to buy a lot that I would like to build a duplex on. Currently there is an old duplex on it but it is pretty rough shape and basically needs to be knocked down. My question is how much capital will I need to build a rental property? I realize if I bought an existing...

Thanks for the reply. The tenant is a professional woman and her 4 year old son so I am hoping it is going to be ok. There won't be anyone else in the house for now. We are working with our lawyer to make sure we do the agreement up properly. We want to get her name on the agreement even...

We finally close the deal for our first rental property this coming Friday, I am very excited. It is a house with a basement suite. The rental market seems fairly good in my opinion, we already have the basement suite rented out and it isn't even completed (thanks to a referral from a fellow...

Thanks for the replies! I really like the idea of a 60/40 split, or something close to that. There are similar houses renting in town for about $1700 up and $1300 down (utilities included) for a total income of $3000. I expect my total non-utilities costs...