All Forum Posts by: Anthony Therrien-Bernard

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Calgary.

Purchase price: $255,000
Cash invested: $80,000

Acquired this property with 5% down payment in 2012 as a house hack. I rented the then illegal basement suite and rented a room to my girlfriends which allowed me to live there for free.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Through a real estate agent

How did you finance this deal?

5% down primary residence mortgage

How did you add value to the deal?

In the following year I started to pull out all carpets and replace them with laminate floor, repaint and change baseboards. In 2014 I completed renovated the basement suite from flooring to ceiling, kitchen, furnace, bathroom, windows etc. I legalized the basement suite a few years ago.

What was the outcome?

Rent: Main Floor $1225 Basement suite: $1000 Total: $2225

Net cash flow: $500

Lessons learned? Challenges?

This property was my first, I feel like everything went wrong there: 4 flooding, bad tenants, overbudget renos but somehow still came out ahead in an economic recession (given enough time, real estate is very forgiving so this property taught me a lot about what NOT to do. This property has been refinanced to a $340 000 80% LTV valuation in 2019 and is still generating good net cash flow.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Calgary.

Purchase price: $255,000
Cash invested: $80,000

Acquired this property with 5% down payment in 2012 as a house hack. I rented the then illegal basement suite and rented a room to my girlfriends which allowed me to live there for free. In the following year I started to pull out all carpets and replace them with laminate floor, repaint and change baseboards. In 2014 I completed renovated the basement suite from flooring to ceiling, kitchen, furnace, bathroom, windows etc. I legalized the basement suite a few years ago. This property was my first, I feel like everything went wrong there: 4 flooding, bad tenants, overbudget renos but somehow still came out ahead in an economic recession (given enough time, real estate is very forgiving) so this property taught me a lot about what NOT to do. This property has been refinanced to a $340 000 80% LTV valuation in 2019 and is still generating good net cash flow.
Rent: Main Floor $1225 Basement suite: $1000 Total: $2225
Net cash flow:

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Through a real estate agent

How did you finance this deal?

5% down primary residence mortgage

@Account Closed Yeah that's how I see it too. I've been buying this year in Calgary I just put one under contract this week, the only thing I am less certain to be honest is the medium-long term economy of the region, but all the properties I get have stupid amount of net cashflow so I really don't bank on appreciation.

Calgary and Alberta in general seems to have less of a crazy hot market right now, still pretty easy to find cash flowing properties. I am less certain about future appreciation as the local economy is still struggling but to me it seems like there is a lot more headroom for the market to go up than a lot of other Canadian cities.

Suited properties are a very good way to get decent cash flow 

You should look into the Smith manoeuvre for this https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/smith-maneuver.asp#:~:text=Key%20Takeaways-,The%20Smith%20Maneuver%20is%20a%20legal%20tax%20strategy%20that%20effectively,tax-deductible%20investment%20loan%20interest.

 That makes sense then

@Owen Langisi thought that you can only do this for a primary residence

I'm also a big fan for Huntington Hills for the home value/rent ratio and potential for future growth, large lots and bungalows also means nice basement suites. There seems to be a sweet spot for decent cash flow neither inner city or outer edge.