All Forum Posts by: James Ma

Being a landlord has been a great hedge against stocks. While returns would've been stronger during this bull run in equities, there just feels like a danger of a huge correction coming.

How much do you want to make annually and what is your risk tolerance is where I would start thinking about how to best utilize your capital. Also a question of how your portfolio is balanced, while I would love to buy more real estate as I feel the gains are going to be stronger, I have close to 90% of my capital in REI so trying to balance that out more into equities and other assets

Add the 40+20 to get 60, then add the 7 and 8 to get 15 to come up with 75

#5 is one I haven't done yet but have concerns about idiot tenants who won't replace the battery on the smart lock and then say they can't get into the home 

#10 There are now water sensor IoT devices that can definitely help monitor floods and have been shown to be well worth their while for anyone who owns apartment buildings as they reduce insurance premiums and help prevent huge water damage claims

How's the appreciation like in the area and economics? Is self managing an option?

There isn't a lot of strong cashflowing properties where I am but having cash flow neutral isn't terrible as it still returns about 15% ROI on the principal paydown of mortgage each year with strong appreciation upside potential. Every 1% appreciation adds another 5% return and in the past 20+ years REI appreciates more than 4%/year on average in every city closeby

I'd look into the fine print of what you had signed on for. Is it a true pre-approved mortgage that the loaner has to honour or is it a pre-qualified amount which is just an estimate but not a final approval for any loan

It sounds like you are  underestimating the value of having cash working for you and there's a lot of potential for making money on leverage right now with super low interest rates.

Stock markets are returning historically on average 8%/year in indexes, there's dividend stocks that can be 5% yield etc. so it is a bad idea to spend all your cash buying properties outright when you could borrow money at a lower % rate and give yourself the freedom to invest your cash into building more wealth.

There's an expression that rich people get rich by using other people's money - in this case the bank's at low rates. Of course leverage does increase your risk but if you're buying cashflowing properties in properly researched areas, I think you'll do very very well!

Banks usually don't like to see your downpayment coming from a HELOC and would add that towards their DTI ratio, if you at least have savings showing and say you plan on using that for the DP, it helps

After a month I would definitely price drop with so little action.

General rule of thumb is:

If there's not enough interested in doing a viewing, the price is too high. Definitely lower rent.

If there's not enough applying after viewing, the condition is not good or price is too high for the actual site. Can either fix up the place a bit or lower rent.

Have you knocked on their door to talk or go in to check on the suite? If they're not returning your calls, thats justification to enter to see if they have abandoned the unit.