All Forum Posts by: Marshall Magnus

Hi Steven,
another local Edmontonian here. I know this post was a while back, but I just stumbled across it. Did you end up moving on the Edmonton deal? I would love to hear how it worked out!

@Mark Diamond

I don’t mind at all. The house is in Montrose, in NE Edmonton. I chose the area based on the appreciation of houses in the neighbourhood, and it is an affordable area of the city to buy in. The city was mid way through an initiative to update the neighbourhood at the time. They repaved the roadways and sidewalks, created multiuse paths, rebuilt the largest park and are currently building a new school. The neighbourhood was the draw but I liked the house for being a rather low point of the street, there was a lot of value to add.

I see you are back in the Edmonton market. Welcome back! Is there an area of the city you are looking into? What sort of property investing (if any) are you interested in?

Hi all,

I wanted to talk about soundproofing and see what the community thinks about noise separation between units.
I am currently developing a legal basement suite in a single-family house in Edmonton Alberta, the house is in a B-C neighbourhood. After reading through the rules and regulations on what is required for fire and noise separation between the units in Edmonton, I found it a little weak. The code states that in Edmonton to have a legal basement suite I have to have 6 inches of bat insulation (or brown in insulation to capacity) in all the ceiling joists, except where there is HVAC running in the joist cavity in which case the main floor HVAC must be moved up to the top of the joist cavity with 3 inches of insulation placed below it and the downstairs HVAC must be moved to the bottom of the joist cavity with 3 inches placed above it. Resilient strips (a strip of metal that prevents thudding  sounds from transfering) must be placed perpendicular to the joists and screwed to the joists. Finally half inch drywall  must be screwed to the resilient strips and not touch the joists themselves. Above is the general requirements although if you read the rules themselves it’s slightly more nuanced than that. There are a couple other components, separate HVAC systems must be in place with no shared ductwork, to illuminate sound transfer between the units, also the smoke alarms must be tied together between the units. 
After sifting through all the information and trying to imagine what it would be like to live in a to-code basement suite below the main floor, I think it would be a pretty loud place to live. I decided to go beyond code of the residential suites and aline more with the commercial apartment building code. For joist cavity insulation I placed 10 inches (Full depth of the joist) of acoustic rated installation, I will separate all of the HVAC and leave the spaces for the required insulation above and below, I am using the resilient strips as per the cities recommendations, and I am using a double layer of 5/8 fire code drywall.
There’s one more area that I decided to change which will help with sound and fire rating but mostly just make it a nicer place to live. I am removing the staircase in the building that goes up and down, I am instead cutting a 36 inch wide door in the foundation wall and pouring concrete steps on the outside of the building so the basement suite will have its own separate entrance. The separation Should help the soundproofing significantly by removing the last area for sound waves to travel through, it will also help the fire rating as there will be no easy path to travel between the units, and finally I imagine it will Make the basement suite a better place for someone to call their home.

My thought on doing all of this beyond code is first of all that I think I will be able to attract a higher quality of tenant who will be likely to stay longer and be more steady. The other benefit is that there aren’t many basement suites available that are quiet, bright (the door is mostly glass), and have their own entrance. I would like to know how other people approach the topic of noise between units and balancing the cost of construction with the quality of unit. 
thanks!

@Nathan Gesner

Note to self, don’t move to Cody Wyoming. 

I also use the Lawdepot. It’s worth taking a look at. You can pay by a yearly subscription, and they have a form for every situation that might come up as a landlord. I used it to set up the lease agreement, inspection form, and notice to enter. One of the things that I really liked about it was that it tells you what you are legally allowed to do in Alberta as well as what is the most common practice among landlords in Alberta. Anyway, I am not incentivized to advocate for them, it’s just a useful service that I like using. 

I am with Joe to some extent. That seems like a leap that would best be handled by someone who is familiar with that volume of holdings. You may be the person who can optimally scale, leverage and control that size of Real Estate holding, but why not put it in the hands of someone who can certainly do it. 
Either way it sounds like you are probably already quite gifted, I’m sure things will work out for you no matter what you decide. 

Yikes, this is quite a ways out of my depth, but I did have the good fortune meet a very good real estate focused accountant who is based in Edmonton. I found him by referral and when I called him to get a basis for whether or not he would be helpful to me, he gave me over an hour of his time to talk through my situation. This was before I had even promised my business. If you are interested please feel free to message me and I will send you his information.

@Adrien Ulliac

I just came across this post and would like to thank you. I am in Edmonton and in the process of creating a legal second suite in the basement of a single family house. I am new to the Real Estate game and I just learned to consider something I hadn’t thought of before, garbage. When I was issued a development permit, for the basement suite, they also provided me with a legal separate address from the main unit. I will have to look into this further to see what happens, but I imagine if you were provided a separate address for the separate suite, they will accommodate the  garbage resources for it as well. If they don’t, I have found 311 to be an endlessly useful resource in my development so far. It would probably be worth the phone call just to talk to someone and find out what is required to gain legal status as a second suite. Who knows, it could even be grandfathered in.

@Milo Milosovic There is no harm in looking for some cooperation between tenants. However, if someone is looking to have a business that can scale up I would caution against anything that falls outside of a set system. I believe in fixed rules and procedures and then modifying the house to fit into that, rather than modifying the rules and procedures to fit the house. 

@Elijah Williamson

I am new to real estate investing as well, so please take this with a grain of salt. In my experience outside of real estate the best returns in a profession come from seeking excellence and the chance to learn and refine a practice.  As someone who is interested in learning, exploring, and generating a name worth having in the industry, I would take the opportunity to participate in a deal with someone else’s funding, even if it meant my financial gain slight. Sometimes that might mean mild profits during the growth phase.  The deals that make large profits and build wealth will come in time.  As an inexperienced investor, I would not pass up on the chance to make my name known with a financial supporter and gain the experience from the project. Josh had mentioned that the cash investor would probably like to see a majority stake, and it might make sense to give it to them. I guess you need to decide, at this point in your career, if you would rather make your gains in cash or experience paid for by someone else. 
Whatever you decide I am sure it will work out as long as you do it with passion. 

Hi Luke,

I am only in the Edmonton market but a friend of mine just bought some lakefront property in Newfoundland. He was planning on working with someone to develop it and sell it. It was an interesting lot, the county created a handful of parcels on the lake and opened it up as a lottery to win the right to choose and buy a parcel. I don’t know anything about the markets outside of Edmonton but he made it seem as though he had in fact “won the lottery” in buying this lot. 
Anyway I know that PEI and Newfoundland are not the same but if you are interested I would be happy to put you in contact with him (he has not found the light that is BP yet).