Spruce Avenue - a bad place for investor in Edmonton?

[ROI]

I am looking for some properties in Spruce Avenue and would like to hear some suggestions from you if you have any experience in this area.

 

[mortgageman]

My dad has a place in Spruce Avenue. It's been a very good investment, is always rented and cash flows well.

NAIT students are a ready source of tenants.

There's some petty crime in the area (people coming from neighbourhoods to the east) and we've lost a few items including a lawn mower and a barbeque tank. We did have one break in a couple of years ago.

The area will benefit from the NAIT LRT line opening.

 

[brentdavies]

Spruce Avenue should be classified as one of the neighborhoods in the Black Triangle of East Edmonton, except it is on the other side of the street in the North West.



Spruce Avenue is an older neighborhood in North Edmonton. Properties were built from starting from the 1920's. So the typically issues with older homes, foundations, 60 amp electrical panels, galvanized water lines, and wooden storm windows.



Easy to find sub standard tenants in this neighborhood. Norwood is the easterly neighborhood, also filled with lower income tenants.



Some new construction with infills.

 

[Sherilynn]

I agree with both of the above posts. Properties in this area can make great investments but tend to have more property management issues and require more upgrades and maintenance. If you let the quality of your property slide, you will quickly decrease your tenant profile. Excellent tenant screening is critical in this area.

 

[mortgageman]

I've had great tenants for the five years I've managed my dad's Spruce Ave. property. There's been little turnover for the main floor suite. I've gone through more tenants in the basement but that goes with the territory as the basement tenants tend to be students.

There has been exactly one bounced cheque in all that time and the tenants paid up as soon as they were notified.

 

[chrisnorris1]

Need to be little cautious about that. You have to taken care of all things by yourself.