All Forum Posts by: Luc Boiron

 I think this is a huge part of the problem. Why is it that a woman's sanity in a relationship is questioned so much more than a man's? Men do a lot worse to women in relationships. It seems common that a man does something he shouldn't, and then blames it on the woman. "I don't know why she's acting so crazy, I only cheated on her once". In fact, if anyone's sanity should be questioned here, it should probably be that of OP.

@Kate Jacobs, I'm not sure what the fact that you and your ex were found to be common law has to do with you not getting anything for what you put into the house, and in fact, it should strengthen your claim for it. If anything, it seems more due to you deciding not to go to court, which I don't know all the facts around, so I can't comment on your choice. Where I live, you would have a strong argument for an equitable constructive or resulting trust, as you added to the value of the property and he shouldn't benefit from it alone. Not saying you should get a share of his house, but you should have a right to some of what you put into the property.

 Is that the way it is in BC? In Ontario, common law spouses don't have property rights, only support rights.

 I think you're making the right choice! There are so many transaction costs here that you wouldn't do any better buying somewhere else. If you were to sell this and then buy another place, you would need to pay agent commissions, which you took into account. You would also have legal fees on the sale, and the purchase. You would need to pay land transfer tax as well when you buy, which would be in the $5,500-6,000 range. You would also need to pay capital gains on your gains, as we do not have a 1031 exchange equivalent here in Canada.

In addition, it is likely that the buyers are not offering much above market value, if at all, so their offer is likely around what your house is worth. They means properties in your area are more expensive, so you would need to pay more to buy the next one as well. The only benefit is that you would have more capital to lever up to buy another.

So, good choice!

@Account Closed I would do what @Matt Geerts said and give them a 90 day notice of rent increase on the prescribed form for the maximum increase allowed this year.

If we had lax rules on increasing rent, I would think more into whether I wanted to increase rents or not. However, in Ontario, you can only increase rents by a small amount per year. The guideline increase is 2% in 2016. It was 1.6% in 2015. If you didn't increase rents in 2015, you can't increase them by 3.6% in 2016. You can still only increase rents in 2016 by 2%, no matter how many years it has been since you last raised rents. Because of this, I would increase the rents by the guideline amount every year, unless you find that you end up charging a lot more than you could otherwise rent it for.

Of course, if a tenant moves out and you re-rent it, you can charge whatever rent you want. Also, how old are your rental properties? Most properties built in the 90's or later are not subject to caps on the annual rent increase.

@Florent Gonthier for tenants on assistance, you can't get their assistance payments garnished. This is one of the issues. You can get collect from tenants on assistance, but they don't likely have much to collect on, and if you can't have their income garnished, it makes it harder to collect.

Also, some tenants will tell you that the government will pay the rent directly to you. This is great, except that the tenant can stop this at any point simply by calling their worker and saying to pay the tenant and the tenant will pay the landlord. So it's not quite as guaranteed as some might think.

As for your definition of cash flow, you are correct. It is essentially CF = NOI - Debt service.

What Greg calls cash flow is a bit of a variation of cash flow, essentially: GregCF = CF - Opportunity cost of capital/equity.

@Phillip Gonzales What is it about this townhouse or the current owner that makes selling to an investor seem like a better option?

Are there tenants currently in place? Most investors who buy single family homes would often go see a property in the same way a traditional buyer would.

If they listed on the MLS they would get traditional buyers and investors to view it.

So what is it about this that makes it different?

 Hamilton is an area I have considered and looked at. I'm really open to any area, for the right deal. 

@Florent Gonthier You are right that it is easier to manage a condo if you are managing it yourself. 

However, buying a freehold property and putting property management in place would be even less work on your part, and the long term returns are likely to be higher.

@Adam Ali Welcome to BP!

I've owned and managed rental properties for a while now, but only recently have started flipping.

If you want sometime, we could grab a coffee to discuss investing in the GTA. 

I live and work right downtown, but I have a flip going on in Scarborough, which is much closer to where you are. 

Thanks @Claude Boiron for the mention.

I agree that it is very hard to cash flow in Toronto. I'm looking outside the GTA for rental properties, but I'm willing to buy in Toronto or the GTA for flips.

I think it is still possible to achieve positive cash flow in Toronto or the GTA, but it would need to be multiple units for it to work.