Well, if you do, then you might be interested in reading this blog. I recently closed on a commercial, strata titled office/ warehouse property in Richmond, BC. Great property; only 5 years old, a nice sized warehouse on the main floor, and a small office on the second floor. To make it even better, I’m 99% sure that the last tenants used it as a porn studio. Since I’ve purchased lots of residential real estate over the past ten years, I figured that this would be easy. The lender only looks at the property, not the borrower in the commercial real estate world, right? Well, this is certainly what I was lead to believe by most people out there, but … Continue reading
Posted in Tales from the trenches | Tagged commercial, financing, real estate, strata, warehouse | Leave a commentI get asked this all the time. “If you live in Vancouver, why do you invest in Alberta?” Surely, it must be simpler to invest closer to home. Less commute time, easier to manage, etc. The short answer is that it doesn’t really matter where you invest, as long as the fundamentals in the market are correct. This is mostly true, although accessibility is somewhat important to me as well. I like to be able to travel to my investment within a day, simply in the event of an emergency. That pretty much means that anywhere in North America fits the bill. The top 10 reasons that I like Alberta over BC; 1. Economy. Alberta (and Saskatchewan), are the Canadian … Continue reading
Posted in Tips for investors | Leave a commentLike many Canadian real estate investors, I’ve had my eyes on the USA market for about 10 years now. The two particular markets that I’ve paid the most attention to have been Phoenix, Arizona, and Dallas/ Fort Worth, Texas. Why those markets you might ask? Phoenix for its in-migration (Baby Boomers/ Snowbirds) an escapees from the mayhem of LA, immigration from Mexico, low taxes, and attractiveness to major employers (cheap land, labour, etc.) Heck, there must be a reason it’s the 6th largest metro area in the USA now? I must admit, the weather, and having an excuse to travel down there didn’t hurt, either. Add to that a 3 hour direct flight from Vancouver…bonus! Dallas/ Fort Worth for the same … Continue reading
Posted in Tales from the trenches | Tagged Arizona, Phoenix, real estate investor, rental property | Leave a commentMost real estate investors, even the “old-school” ones, now rely on electronic means to collect at least a portion of their rents. Gone are the days when most of us only collected post-dated cheques, or cold, hard cash. Although we still collect cash and paper cheques, at least half of our tenants pay us via direct deposit, or more commonly, via EMT (email money transfer). These EMT’s are offered through Interac, a secure, reliable system governed by the big Canadian banks. It is not uncommon for us to deposit up to $30,000 on the first of the month in email money transfers. Well, as many people now know, on Oct 1, 2013, the system came to a screeching halt. Whether … Continue reading
Posted in Tales from the trenches | Tagged real estate investing, real estate investor | Leave a comment