All Forum Posts by: Kristina Schmitt

Great job! I give you so much credit for taking on such a large project for your first flip!

Lee Jackson Did this deal ever go through? Have you done any others. We found an opportunity and are looking into some type of seller financing. Just looking to see what others have done.

I should be there with our newest addition unless Matt and I decide to go away. We'll both be on parental leave then!

You don't necessarily need the comps unless you're trying to get your after repair value. A realtor can help you with that. You should add up all of your expenses and then work backwards to get your maximum allowable offer. The calculators are great for that and also give you insight as to how to find numbers you don't know where to get (like the comps).

Looks great Matt!

Jason Griffore I would just either post to this thread or start a new one. I think most of us have London as a key word anyway. You can also post on the meetup calendar. I'd be up for a weekend meetup as well as long as we're free. We still need to schedule our tour de St Thomas and our Rat Race playing days. I'll be at the sept 20th one with a new little bundle in tow. His name is Ethan and he was born Sept 6 at 5:54am. Matt may or may not be able to join depending on his work schedule that day.

You definitely want to make it better than break even. The 1% rule is just a guideline for a quick analysis and, I've heard it said before, doesn't really work in Canada. We have a duplex that cash flows, but doesn't pass the 1% rule, so run the full numbers. I'd recommend using the calculators on here at least a couple of times to get an idea of what to include in your analysis. (There's a lot you can miss that can bite you in the rear end). I've been using them to create my own excel calculator, but it's probably faster and easier to just use them on here. 

A hard money lender (HML) is for short term only. That's why the interest rates are so high. The idea would be that they would lend you the entire price of the place so you could pay cash, then you would fix it up enough to increase the value and refinance and pull enough cash out of it to pay back the HML what he/she loaned you plus the interest. You may be able to put 5% down if you live in one of the units, but I'm not sure. I think over four units moves into commercial territory and it may not apply. You can definitely do that with a duplex and I think up to a four plex. Where in Ontario are you?

Have you looked outside the city at all? If you can't afford something in town, there may be something more in your price range outside the city a bit. I know you're nervous about construction, but have you just looked for an ugly house? Maybe something where you don't need to do major renovations, but where some paint and flooring upgrades / updates will do some good. There's the book on estimating rehab costs that Brandon wrote too that could come in handy for you when going through the numbers. No matter what, make sure the numbers work!

It's marked on my calendar!