All Forum Posts by: James Ma

Isn't there a contract with the wholesaler? You'd be able to sue him for damages for breaking contract.

He would be responsible for refunding the deposit along with potential damages for lost opportunity costs 

If you want to help your friends, then help them and don't expect a fee. If i was a realtor I would personally not want to be my friends' agent because its a totally different thing than being their friend. They may be great people as friends but there are just too many things that can sour the relationship when being their realtor. Different if you become their friend AFTER being their realtor :)

I can imagine how hard the conversation would be if you had to tell your friend that what they are offering is not enough as a good offer and them still wanting you to write offers, being super picky and wanting you to show them far too many places, them asking you to do more than the average realtor would because you guys are friends, or maybe they are totally unreasonable and difficult to deal with when buying a home and they will blame you when you lose a deal for them etc.

If you really value them as friends I would avoid being their agent. I think your friends may just be thinking of the above as well and would feel uncomfortable doing business with you since they like having you as a friend and worry that doing business together could change the relationship for the worse.

I'd rather suggest a realtor that is very trusted to handle their business and then take a referral fee if the realtor closes the deal with them.

Often the deals to be found where I live are not in the major cities but in the more areas close by (ie. hour or so drive from popular city centres). I would expand your search to other areas and you should find deals that are cash flow positive

Depends what the realtor is going to do that deserves beyond normal commission. If he's really able to justify his value then sure but otherwise there's so many realtors that want my business.

For someone who I work with frequently I would almost expect the opposite and expect to be given a discount since Im buying at least 1 property a year etc.

Be respectful to people's time, if you know that you're not going to accept someone then let them know quickly. If you have someone that's borderline, then its fair to take some time to make a decision and you would just run the risk that they do find another place as well. 

Fairly often, good candidates, who I would accept, often find another place or change their mind so I move pretty quickly when processing their applications and will even let them know they're my top pick as long as everything goes well with their application.

I could see this as a protection against subletters. I've heard stories of people who rented from someone who they thought was the landlord but was actually the tenant. Things went south somehow and the people were stuck having to renegotiate a new lease with the actual landlord.

I could see this hustle being run often in BC where the amount rent can be raised is capped so lots of tenants are getting a steal of a deal compared to in-market rents so they can move-in with a friend and rent out their existing under market place to someone else at market rates and turn a tidy monthly profit

Residential actually. The bank said they would just do an early renewal since its under them already and add-on the penalty onto the outstanding mortgage balance.

I agree with Russell.

I usually ask for the DL of my tenants and don't have a problem giving mine out either - there's a lot of scammers these days. If they're the type of people that you feel uncomfortable giving your DL to, you probably shouldn't be renting to them.

So mortgage rates have dropped substantially from a year ago (3.64% to 2.79% on a 5 year fixed). I have about 4 years left on the 5 year term and I've run the numbers which shows if I can buyout the mortgage, it would be profitable to pay the buyout penalty fees.

Is there any way that I would be able to renegotiate the existing mortgage rate with my current bank or would another bank be willing to essentially "buy out" this mortgage and win my business by replacing it with a lower interest rate mortgage?

The most the interest rates would rise in a year would be about 1% and it is usually much less... I'm on fixed mortgages myself but even if on variable, if things get too risky you can always convert into a fixed mortgage later. As Luc said, the rates won't rise too aggressively as it would cause a housing collapse like the US. Even the 2% stress test implemented was to help prevent the risk of a collapse.