All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

@Marcia Maynard  Thank you for the warm welcome (and apologies for my extremely delayed response.)   BC is indeed spectacular, no matter which corner of the province you find yourself in!  I'd encourage you to come and check out our area - especially if you enjoy nordic skiing.  We hosted the Canadian Masters Nationals in 2012, and the trails and facilities around here went from great to spectacular.  You got very close to us in your travels- Emerald Lake is within an hour drive from my front door :)

Back to the topic of real estate - I dropped the idea after an initial look into it, but cannot seem to let it go.  Back to doing research and learning what I can...hopefully in the next year we can find something that will meet our needs, and start this journey off!

Thank you@Shahriar K.   I will take a closer look over the next year and see if I can shake anything out of the cracks!  Otherwise, we may have to start looking elsewhere - or simply become Index investors! :)

Also, thank you to @Brie Schmidt for reading a noobie question, and pointing me towards some potential assistance.

Finally, a big thanks to @Larry Smet - we are definitely not in the same neck-of-the-woods, but your comment IS helpful.  Even though we are in a recovering market (I did assume a 2% annual appreciation) I will do future calculations as though there is none.  I am in no hurry, and I am certain that there is a gem to be found somewhere near to home.  I haven't yet given a lot of thought to investing outside communities that we do not have immediate family in/pass through frequently - let alone outside the country.  I'll have to find some posts on that subject to peruse.

Thanks all - hope you had a great long weekend!

Hi everyone, 

We are in a small town in the Canadian Rockies (Golden BC) and are looking into whether or not it is viable to purchase a rental property or two.  We should have some extra cash in our corporation in the next couple of years, and we are trying to do our homework now - before the cash sits idle for too long.

In our town, we have limited options for multi-family (there are 3 small apartment buildings), but a lot of the town is zoned R2, so there are quite a few properties with income suites in the basement - or we would have the option to add a suite into a suitable property.

In some VERY PRELIMINARY calculations, it appears difficult to have any property in our area provide any cash flow without a large downpayment ($100K plus). Is this normal? Especially in BC?? The Cap Rates hovers around 5%, the COC is terrible (equivalent to our "High" Interest savings account with ING or slightly better), but the Total ROI starts to look mildly better- in the 12-14% range.

I guess we are wondering what is considered "reasonable" in the BC marketplace, outside of the Vancouver area.  We would like to buy and hold, and are looking for some monthly cash flow to supplement our future Early Retirement plans.

We have lots to learn, and are just starting to dig through the resources on this site!

Cheers, 

Alison K