All Forum Posts by: Bayard P.

Besides taxes, general labour and some material costs can be more compared to the States. 

The problem is, everyone says they are a long term investors until prices start dropping they suddenly want to sell or have to sell.  We wouldn't have housing bubbles or stock market bubbles if everyone actually stayed rational in times of price drops and price increases.  

Buy low, sell high.  Seems like the most easiest financial advice but the most difficult for a majority of people to actually execute.  

From my own research and consultations with lawyers, accountants and cross-border specialist the LLC entity is not the recommended choice for a Canadian citizen. It mainly has to do with how Canada Revenue Agency views the LLC, it has to do with the flow-through tax structure of an LLC, read link. It's confusing because when you talk to lawyers or accountants down in the US they immediately recommend an LLC like a reflex but many of them do not know of the CRA tax issue with LLC, you can avoid the double tax issue by choosing to have the LLC taxed as a corporation but you might as well just create a US Corporation from the beginning. If you want to still have a "pass-through" US entity structure your only real options are to create a US general partnership or US limited partnership as the CRA recognizes these under the CAN-US tax treaty.

I am not lawyer or accountant and the above information and opinions expressed is soley based on my own independent research. You can find a lot of articles on this subject just by googling "LLC Canada Taxes" and again ensure you get proper consultation as your goals and needs will vary and dictate the type of structure you will end up using.

Just make sure before signing any contracts to have an independent local lawyer go through it. In general you should try to find independent people that will work on your behalf and not rely just solely on people that either work or are recommended by Marco.  

I was thinking about attending the free "How to invest in US real estate" seminar by Marco Kozlowski but figured it would be a sales pitch for something.  You can learn everything and more on real estate investing in the US from connecting directly with real estate investors on BiggerPockets, searching and posting questions on the forums, going to local real estate meetings, listening to BP podcasts and checking out the free weekly webinars Brandon Turner does on on BP.  In addition you will want to talk with a cross border expert (lawyer/accountant/consultant). The whole Canadian-US tax situation is a little more complicated. 

Definitely would recommend you have a talk with Michael Sherwood.  He's the M in C&M Rental.  Charles and Mike are a good group of guys.  

I've used XE.com to wire funds and send a bank draft.  Rates are good and fees are usually cheaper than a bank.  Wire fee was half what the bank was charging. Using these third party services usually takes more time to send and receive funds a couple business days to send the money to the foreign exchange broker and couple days to then send it the beneficiary ( total 4 to 6 business days ).  The bank draft takes longer due mailing (XE handles the mailing).  

If speed and time is a factor, then wiring funds directly from your bank account to the beneficiary account is the better option.  Should be less than a few hours or a single business day.  

On another note the client can also avoid currency fees if he opens a USD checking/savings at their bank in Canada.

Haven't seen this suggested yet.  Try facebook for business, local awareness ads. https://www.facebook.com/business/a/local-awareness

From 3.3 billion global passengers this year to 7.3 billion by 2034.  North America is expected to grow 3.3 percent annually over the next 20 years.Source: Globe And Mail

Should be good news for real estate investors located near the many major air transit hubs in the U.S.  New York City, Los Angelas, Chicago and Atlanta immediately come to mind, there's a whole list of the major passenger traffic airports I found on Source: Wikipedia.  Was surprised to see Charlotte, Pheonix and Denver in the top ten.

 7 degrees F temp. over 100 years is kind of a big deal when it comes to climate.  Significant increase in hurricanes, coastal floods, droughts, and extreme heat alert days.  The northern states will see more rain than snow and cold season storms. Source: US EPA Overall I don't think this future will look good for anyone. Hopefully we won't ever get to that point.  I'm pretty optimistic we will find some sort of solution and if we don't we will learn to adapt to the conditions (at least our grand children will).  By the way that worst case scenario of 7 degrees is from the IPCC which is in dispute with other climate models that peg it at 9.4 degrees F by 2100. Source: Scientific America