Sell or Keep Old City Nanaimo Property

[margaretcowan]

Hi

I own an old, well maintained, five suite house with a bit of a sea view in the Old City in Nanaimo just up the hill from downtown. I bought it in 1997 so have a nice gain. I don`t have to sell it.

I`m thinking about selling it now, since the market is starting to soften, I don`t want to see my hard earned gain go down and I could leave some money on the table for another investor who`d wait for the downtown Nanaimo development to be completed.

On the other hand, perhaps I should stay in for the longer term and wait for downtown Nanaimo to complete its facelift and sell then with a potentially higher gain.

I`d really appreciate your opinions!

Thanks,
Margaret

 

[DonCampbell]

There is no black and white answer. There are two key considerations to my decision process on whether to sell or hold on:

1. Go back to your goal with the property when you bought it, and whether you have achieved that goal.

2. The 2nd component is what your options are for the cash that you will net after taxes and commissions. Do you have a place to put it that will give you a better ROI than the property is providing you?

One final thought that I work through when deciding whether to sell or hang on: I run through the Goldmine Scorecard on the city and the neighbourhood as if it was the first time I was considering the area (i.e looking at it with new eyes) to see what the potential is for the town.

Trust that helps!

 

[margaretcowan]

Thanks Don!

I`m going through my Goldmine Score Card as if I were to buy this property today. I`m not having much luck on getting stats on two questions.

Is the area creating jobs faster than the provincial average?
Is the area`s average income increasing faster than the provincial average?

I searched the Net and phoned the Nanaimo Economic Development office who didn`t have stats. They referred me to Service Canada in Nanaimo who has not called me back and whose site leads me to believe they`re more of job finding service.

Newspaper articles I found suggest the answer to these questions is no, but I`d like stats.

Any suggestions from anyone with more experience in filling out the Goldmine list?

Margaret