All Forum Posts by: Brianne Chard

@Zach Denny I'm not much help on this, but my advice would be to either consult with your cosignor's Accountant, or if they aren't very well versed in investments/ real estate then I would find someone who is. They'll be able to direct you through this situation best!

I'm pretty sure we were able to get 75% LTV on our HELOC, it's just through TD regular banking. Moving forward, all of our transactions will be through CIBC Imperial Service. I think they cater to members with $1M + in assets, which it sounds like you would qualify for, it's also only 1 agent that you deal with for all banking needs ie: mortgage, LOC, investments etc. I'm unsure if there would be a better rate on that, but we've found it's much easier dealing with our branch agent because he's way more open to putting different packages together with us. We found with other banks or brokers, there was a lot of confusion with everything we have going on and we wanted someone that's not overwhelmed with our multiple properties and investments etc.

Not sure what the law is on this in your area. When we have a new tenant move in, they have to go to Canada Post themselves to register for the box and pay the key deposit if the mail isn't delivered directly to the house. I would contact USPS and see if you're even able to register on someone else's behalf, that being said though, it's a small price to pay to have a happy tenant and not have the headache of arguing about it. 

This is really awesome, I wish I would've started investing at your age!

@Robert Bugeag really nailed it. A huge part of this process is knowing your market and being able to quickly analyze a property so you're not wasting your time on a property that isn't going to work for you. In this market, you need to be able to act quickly. Ryan Carr has a really simple method that he's shown on FB and Instagram called napkin numbers, super basic but it really dials it down. He's in the Durham region and does a lot of networking groups around. This will also help you to recognize when someone hasn't given a full picture of expenses on a property. The more you look at them, the more you'll pick up on that. 

I think the second thing you can focus on is networking. With Covid, most networking and investor groups have moved meetings online. It would be a great idea to get to know people that are investing in that area and even surrounding areas. Maybe someone is willing to mentor you? You can at least start to learn from people that are actually investing in that area. 

We used Buildium for quite a few years and have just switched to Mi Property Portal because we wanted a Canadian software. They're based in Toronto so all of the LTB forms and everything are available for Ontario.

@Nicholas Plouffe we recently switched from Buildium, we'd been with them for approximately 4 years. I would highly recommend going with a software that is Canadian based. Buildium has a lot of functionality and it makes a lot of things easier, but as a Canadian, I felt like we were paying for a lot of things that we couldn't use, or in the end it wasn't easy for us to use. 

I highly recommend going with a Canadian company, though with only 3 units, at this point you could get away with an Excel spreadsheet.

You need to check your provincial rules. I'm in Ontario, rent's can only be increased every 12 months, you need to give the tenant 90 days notice and you can only increase the rent by the percentage that is set out by the board. 

@Ken Didychuk we've been using Buildium for a number of years but there were quite a few things that we weren't taking advantage of because they were for US only and it's very US based. One of the things we really wanted was a Canadian company that would allow us to use forms directly through our software instead of having to go to the Landlord Tenant Board website, fill everything in and then send. We chose Mi Property Portal which is a Canadian company based in Toronto. We've really liked it so far, much smoother work flow for us!

We have used Tenant Verification Services for years and really like it! We're in the process of switching to new software and they're integrate with SingleKey, I'm excited to try it out!

In addition to the great advice everyone else has already given, I would suggest not taking separate payments from the tenants. They signed the lease together, the rent payment should come to you in one lump sum. Otherwise, you'll soon have one of them not paying and the other saying they've paid their 'share', which sets a precedent. Whenever we rent to more than one tenant that isn't married, we always let them know that we don't care what their agreement is for who is paying what, we get 1 rent payment. We also start out very clear on what options are in the case that the relationship breaks down (ie: assign/ sublet the lease, potentially breaking the lease early etc.)