All Forum Posts by: John Humphries

@Jarred DeArmas Thought I'd throw something in here to keep this topic active as I am looking at a seller financed deal as well. I'd love to see other people weigh in here, but you can write your offer any way you'd like. I've heard of some very creative seller finance offers and would love to see some people share theirs.

Obviously, the flat rate would be highly beneficial to you as the buyer, but I can't imagine anyone taking you up on that. You would most likely have to structure it in the same fashion as a bank or other major lender (APR) to have your offer taken seriously.

When structuring my potential offer for a seller financed property, I'm using an online mortgage calculator to determine the payments and offer that I am making.  Just as an example with made up numbers: Seller with house at $120,000. The price is too high for me to cash flow so I plug in different offer prices, downpayments, and interest rates into a mortgage calculator until I get numbers that I can live with and that could be fair to the seller.  For example in this scenario, I could offer $90,000 with a $9000 down payment and 3.5% fixed interest on a 30 year amortization. With those numbers, I could make the property cash flow, but also, the seller would get monthly payments for 30 years eventually totaling around $135,000. Not necessarily the best example but hopefully, that makes sense?

@Reginald Dearmon House hacking a duplex is an awesome way to get into the market.  I got my start doing that. Great learning opportunity. One piece of advice that I learned the hard way is to make sure to set your management style early with your tenants. I'm learned right away that I'm too much of a nice guy to an "onsite" property manager. My first tenants had me changing light bulbs! Every time we ran into one another in the front yard or foyer, they had something they wanted to talk to me about. Management was much easier when I moved away and rented the whole duplex. Make sure to set the tone early!

@Jay Hinrichs Hah! That's what I do for work now! I had to snorkel the Campbell a few times this fall and winter to monitor the salmon run in the canyon. Sometimes the job is pretty cool.  Not so fun when the air temps dip below freezing though!  As for the bear watching, Great Bear Nature Tours offers a world class experience.  I'd highly recommend anyone coming out this way to check it out.  Float plane from Port Hardy to a remote floating lodge on the central coast for a few days of delicious food and drink, amazing scenery, and some pretty awesome bear viewing. It was an awesome place to spend a few seasons with the bears.

@Jay Hinrichs You are definitely right about this part of the world being spectacular.  I've lived in many places in the US and Canada and can't imagine calling anywhere else home. My wife and I have been expedition sea kayak guides around the island as well as commercial bear viewing guides along BC's central coast.  I work as a wildlife biologist now with a bunch of fisheries guys who still do some fishing charters in their spare time at some of the major fishing resorts.  A few even have their own boats and do some local charters. Drop us a line if you are ever out this way. We love showing people around in this part of the world!

@Jay Hinrichs I think you may be right as an appreciating market like that can protect you a bit against mistakes or bad estimates. I've not had much experience in that arena and am not confident enough in my ability to estimate ARV or repair costs. Need to find some local investors or contractors to help me out a bit there to better understand that process.

By the way, really appreciate your website (Turnkey Reviews).  I've used it quite a bit to help research providers down in the US. Nice work there!

@Account Closed There is a meet up group in Nanaimo, although I don't much about it myself. I'd like to get something together here in the Comox Valley, so stay tuned...

@Jay Hinrichs Campbell River is a bit cheaper although I just had a co-worker buy a residence there and he was in bidding wars for every property that he looked at.  He ended up offering above list price in order to get his new place. Rents there seem to be climbing lately as well but certainly no mls inventory that meets the 1% rule.  Definitely have to be a bit more creative to make it work around here. 

Between Courtenay and Campbell River there definitely are quite a few places that are on the market that could use updating. Lots of appliances and fashions from the late 80's/early 90's. I'm wondering if there is a market for updating as many of these places just need cosmetic work to bring them up to today's design standards. I'd love to talk to anyone who might be doing BRRR or fix and flip strategies successfully on this part of the island.

Hey @Randy Molland, good to hear Victoria represented on BP.  I think Victoria may be a bit out of my price range but I'm always interested in any possibility to see return on my dollars. I'm curious to know what kind of numbers you are seeing with buy and holds that cash flow there.  Are you finding these through mls or off market?

That's interesting about the Nanaimo zoning for coach houses. That really opens up some possibilities there.  Just one more area to keep an eye on then! Thanks for chiming in. 

Hey @Tom Stromar

I love the idea of adding the coach house to properties, especially in Courtenay where there are quite a few areas zoned R2 that could accommodate them. I think Cumberland has this option as well.  I just need to find some good local contractors and hopefully get a bit more inventory here locally to choose from.  Most properties within that zoning have been built in a way on the lot so that the coach house option does not exist (you could add a suite or duplex though).  Just a matter of being patient and finding the right property. As far as buy and hold here in the Comox Valley, that seems to be the best strategy that I've seen. Rents have really started to move up in the last few months so that should bring about a few more possibilities. Also, vacancy rate here is crazy low.  Craigslist has almost as many people begging for rentals than rentals being advertised.

There are some interesting multi-family units in Port Alberni that an agent pointed out to me. I'd like to have a look as they seem to support a much easier cash flow than what is currently on the market here. My worry there is local employment but so far the population there has remained fairly consistent according to a coworker who has lived there all of his life.

I'm keen to meet some other local investors to see how they are doing things.  Are you actively investing in Nanaimo at the moment? If so how are you finding success?

I'm curious to hear from other Vancouver Island investors to see if you have been able to locate any buy and hold opportunities with cash flow? I'm over in Courtenay and not having much luck here lately. My wife and I bought a 1/2 duplex last year that brings in a bit of cash flow @ 20% down with a conventional mortgage, but not enough to get really excited about. I'm still keen to find something here but am starting to look a bit further afield on the island. There seems to be opportunity in Port Alberni, but I wonder about it's population stability. Nanaimo and Parksville seem to be a bit expensive after a good run up, but what about the Cowichan Valley? I'd love to hear from anyone else around who is doing buy and hold and/or BRRR. What are your numbers looking like? Do you have an awesome contractor to recommend? Let's see some Vancouver Island content on the blogs!