Findin deals in Canada

[Curtis Sharpe]

Hey everyone, I am wondering if anyone knows how to find deals in Canada that's not just the MLS, it seems the properties my real estate agent is showing me is bottom of the barrel, does anyone have any strategies for deal hunting in Canada.

[George Lay]

Originally posted by @Kaman P.:

Originally posted by @George Lay:

I live in Vancouver and invest in Edmonton and I solely use MLS at this point in time. It is really just a numbers game. Find a realtor (or a few realtors) who are willing to work with you and make plenty of offers at the numbers you're comfortable with. You'll learn over time what works and what doesn't. To me, bottom of the barrel isn't a bad thing, it's where your good opportunities can be found. Just look at the less desireable house in the best neighborhood and you cant go wrong. I'd stay away from the worst house early in your investing career cause you may be biting off more than you can chew at that point. There's nothing wrong with taking on a modest fixer-upper in the beginning and taking on more challenging ones as you become more experienced.

Thanks George! What type of investments are you doing in Edmonton and are you seeing a good ROI? I haven't really looked into Alberta because of the economic downturn there but maybe it's a good opportunity because of that. Since I'm starting out, I wanted to invest somewhere close (I live in Toronto so driving distance from TO), did you do some local deals first then ventured out of state? Or you just went directly there because there's better opportunities.

 Hey Kaman,

I only started last year trying to buy and hold and found it kind of boring in that i ran out of money after only a couple of deals. This year's goal is to just focus on flipping mild fixer uppers as it's a little more fun and active. Edmonton was perfect for that because the prices are more within my comfort range whereas locally in Vancouver, you'd have to pay 3-4X that amount of money for the same thing. In terms of ROI typically I try to price it so that i make about 20%-40% of my money back in the form of equity and operating income. Only time will tell how accurate that will be. My most recent property (The one I'm most happy with)... I was all in at $140,000 (including reno and closing costs) and am working on refinancing $50,000 back out of it at the moment which will leave about $90,000 in the property. If I sold it, it would give net me another $30,000 so basically I'd get $80,000 in profit on $140,000 investment in about 8 months. Guess it adds up to 85% ROI. That would drop down over time if I keep it so I'm torn as to whether I should take my money now or sit on it forever. Either way it'll cashflow so its not so bad.

Whether you go locally or out of town will depend on your comfort level of relying completely on outside help. If you're the type of person that needs to touch and taste, i'd stay local. But if you're comfortable treating it like a mutual fund or a stock, the world is a big place with lots of opportunity. Out where you are, there's also tons of secondary markets to explore as well that don't require plane tickets, just longer drives. It's a good way to dip your toes in the water where the property is far enough away so that you need to rely on other people for most things but close enough that you could step in and do it yourself if it became necessary.