First Investment Property Purchase Questions, looking for input

[Ryan Sauer]

Hello everyone,

I think it would be best for me to first introduce myself. My name is Ryan, I live in Niagara Falls, ON, Canada am 28 years old and work in Water Treatment with my local municipality. Two of my all time favorite hobbies include weight lifting and float fishing! For years now, me and my wife have always had the dream of owning rental propertie(s). So recently after finally getting over the emotional scare of making the jump and searching for properties for over 6 months we made the jump and put in an offer on a quad-plex in Niagara that after a bit of back and forth and reaching agreements, our offer got accepted. I feel this property is a great property, because its current income (although rents are way below market rent) pays the expenses of the property. The big renovation expenses have been looked at by the previous owner, such as majority new windows and a new roof(22K$) that was part of our deal. This building is really 4 townhomes in a 2x2 grid, each unit features 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and a basement with 2 entrances. This property can use some work as the units are a bit dated. This property was inspected by a home inspector, and I plan to go through his report and fix most things. I plan to get the full exterior cleaned/fixed up and replace more major things as they come up down the road ex. furnace(s). As tenants move out in the future I will fully renovate the unit and put it up for market rent. To increase the property value, property income and therefore refinance for a greater amount.

I have a couple questions for the experienced:

We close on the property February 5th. It seems like my real estate agent has totally dropped us after he sealed the deal. He never answers any questions I request him to ask the seller. Such as about the snow removal (I would like to continue to use the same company to finish the season). Is it ok for me to go above him and contact the selling agent with my questions? I am currently getting now where with mine, and I would really like to be ready with a snow removal contractor for our possession date.

I dont know if this is only a Canadian thing, but for the rents of each unit I was given an overall Proforma that shows the year it was rented and the current rent rate. Is there a document that should provide me with information on the tenants, like there name etc?  There is no lease agreements on these units. Each tenant is currently month to month. I was thinking of filling in my own lease agreements and backdating them to there occupied date. (SO they arent bound to a year agreement and they stay month to month.

Do you have any suggestions for what I should do when I first take possession of the property? I plan on doing my property walk around, meeting the tenants and provide them with a letter of who we are and how to reach us if there is an issue with the property. Should I state in this letter how we would like to be paid and if by cheque, etc?

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask! I am super excited for this journey as I am a hard worker, enjoy learning new things and solving problems! I am super excited to be apart of the BP community!

Ryan

[Zorya Belanger]

Originally posted by @Ryan Sauer:

@Zorya Belanger Thank you very much for your input. I really appreciate it as this is a learning process for me.

I totally agree with the leases ! All tenants have moved into the property between 2013-2017. I will definitely make up new leases between myself and each tenant. I hate all this being disorganized, its driving me nuts, I need to just get this place and have everything organized and logged accordingly...

Yes, we did do a walk through before going firm on this property.

So the first property we went to look at with this realtor, he actually had my wife contact the selling agent to book a walkthrough time because he did not like the selling agent at all. That should have been my red flag right there... The things I did like about the realtor was that he had experience with investment properties, as he owns many and he actually gave good advice to us on what he thought was a good property and what he didnt think was good for the requested price. The quadplex we purchased with him, I do have to give him credit, that he got us a great deal on it, below list price in the highly competitive market of the Niagara Region. 

Its just so annoying to me that after we went firm, its like we are non existent to him and he does no more work for us and wont find out any info I request from the seller, all he needs to do is make one phone call or even email! Should I contact the selling agent directly or is this crossing the line? (Im new to this lol, this might be a dumb question.)

 

I would contact the seller's agent. I don't think it's crossing the line. You've obviously made an attempt to go through your realtor, and since that's not working, you need to take on that role yourself now.