Hi all, I have an opportunity to buy a 4-Plex using some vendor financing. Here is the situation keeping the numbers easy to use. Value is 400,000 and the vendor is willing to loan me the 20% ($100,000) Q- assuming that I and the property qualify, which banks would be willing to look at...

Brett is right. Most insurance companies will opt to change your policy from personal to a commercial policy once you have 4 or more properties. This is not a big deal, you may see a small increase but nothing to worry about. You may ask to increase your deductible to $1,000 as this will...

I have a 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo in Ft Sask and I just renewed the lease at $1,485 + the tenant pays the power bill. I also rent out my extra parking stall for an additional $75. I did not have much trouble renting it out even though I live 2 hours away. I would recommend that you check out...

Hi, I am in the same situation as you are. Commercial is a totally different business than residential. There is a commercial real estate seminar being held in Calgary on March 27-29 and is being offered by Greg Habstritt. You can view details on his website www.simplewealth.com Good Luck!

Mr. Beyer, Thank-you for your thoughts, I always enjoy reading your posts and I greatly appreciate the time that you dedicate to REIN. I am registered to go and I look forward to a jam packed weekend. I am just having second thoughts about the time and money spent away from the family. But I...

I have heard Greg speak at a few REIN meetings and I have been very impressed with his presentations and knowledge. But is his 3 day or 5 day courses on Commercial Real Estate worth it?

I own a condo in Ft Sask, it is a 1 year old 2 bedroom, 2 bath with an underground parking stall. I just reduced the rent from 1650 to 1465 + Power. But to off set the decreased rent, I have rented the additional above parking stall for 85 a month extra. There is still demand in the Fort for...

Thanks for your reply, I feel like a bit of a sucker, I will try to get out of my contract. When they come to the door and give you their sales pitch, I am usually very hesitant to sign anything, but they were so confident and they had tonnes of graphs and stats showing that the price of gas...

Hi everyone, I locked in my gas costs a few months ago at 8.99 per GJ and the current market rate is only 7.22 and I have read that they expect it to go down. This difference works out to apx. $20/ month on a 4 bedroom house. Looking at this from a long term point of view, what are your...

My dad has apartment buildings, condo’s & town houses in the U.S. They are all primarily in Phoenix and SE states with a few in Texas and California. From talking to him, he has anywhere from 20-50% vacancy and according to him he has better than average vacancies than the market. I cant tell...

I have 2 families in 2 of my detached dwellings. They have been there for 2 years and are paying above market rents. They are great tenants, but keep in mind that they are previous home owners who have moved to Alberta to work. I did more due diligence on them than any other tenant and...

I always to fit some humor in my day. And there is no funnier cartoon to read than Calvin and Hobbs. A recommend buying one of his many books and reading a few short pages when ever you need a good laugh or after a tough day. Make me laugh every time. Dan Nielsen

Hi Rasna, Keep in mind that if you are going to be a partner with your spouse in the RE bus, you cannot pay yourself a wage. Unless you set up a separate business return on your T1 reporting contracting income from the partnership – be careful here, personally I would go back to the old KISS...

Jessandy, I am not sure who told you that becoming incorporated is the best thing to do, but I would strongly suggest that you take your time and carefully research the pros and cons and long term effects of creating a limited company. Accountants will vary on this issue but generally there is...

please note in my last post I called the capital gains credit a Dividend Tax Credit, I meant to say it is called a Capital Dividend Account. I should not type and drink Tim Hortons at the same time. ha ha

Hi Holymoly, This is a great question. I was in the same situation as you are in now and I bought my first property with the company’s money because I did not want to take it out and pay taxes on it personally and further more use pretax dollars to invest. The problem is that CRA does not...

Bill, that is a great suggestion. The only thing to keep in mind when paying family members is to keep a detailed record of their work and how much you pay them for each job. CRA is ok with this as long as we pay our kids, spouse etc a reasonable amount and be sure to claim the income on their...

Hi Mark, This is a great question. I had my own accounting business for 12 years doing corporate and business taxes. Now keep in mind that I sold the business almost 3 years ago but here is my 2 cents. If you are operating your real estate business personally (not incorporated) you CANNOT...

Hi, we just did a new bathroom floor in one of our units and we used tiles. You can pick them up fairly cheap. It looks great and I should not have to ever do it again. Total cost was under $400 installed by our handyman.

QUOTE (RArora @ Dec 1 2008, 12:52 PM) Hi! We just received our renewal notice for our home rental policies. we currently have 1 principal home and 2 rental properties. I checked with Belair and they have confirmed that they insure only upto a total of 4 homes-including our principal residence...