All Forum Posts by: Steven Darrow

Hi Stephan,

I ended up investing with a local company on a short term loan to finance a project they were working on in Ontario. I weighed the amount of time, risk, US exchange, etc. and decided this was better for me at the time. That loan comes due in June though and I'll be looking for opportunities to reinvest. 

No doubt there are decent deals to be found in & around Halifax if you look hard enough. It's definitely a buyers market right now. I still have my single family rental in Halifax but I'm just not sure how many eggs I want to put in the Halifax basket. 

Do you attend any of the local investor group meet ups?

To the foreclosure experts out there, I have a couple of questions (& apologies if this has been discussed already):

1. If I wanted to bid on a property via the County foreclosure site, do I have any way of inspecting the property first? Or are they typically all purchased as-is, buyer beware?

2. If the property is a member of an HOA, will the HOA's typically disclose the amount of past due fees owing to a prospective bidder?

I'm more curious than anything, simply because I still get all of his newsletters & emails sent to my inbox each month. Just wondering if anyone has experience with him or his programs.

Thanks

I've been calling around to some US banks this week to see what they offer to Canadian residents in terms of financing US property. Here's what I've learned so far:

BMO Harris - Will loan up to 70% LTV on second home (he basically told me you don't tell them it's an investment property & the won't check). They typically don't like to do loans for less than $100k, but they don't have a policy of any specific minimum. The kicker is that you need to have a $25,000 "relationship account" with them at time of closing. They're not clear on how long the account must be in place, but it must be there at closing and can't be your deposit on the home purchase.

TD - Will loan on investment properties along the eastern seaboard (Maine to Florida, excluding Georgia). They say they will lend up to 75% LTV with no loan minimum. Although, I don't have a lot of confidence in the rep I was talking to…not sure if she knew what she was talking about.

Express Capital Mortgage Inc. - Will loan on 1 property only. 50% LTV, min. $50k loan. Can do any state except for Nevada.

RBC - Will loan up to 60% LTV on investment properties, 80% on second home. Minimum loan of $75k. Will only loan on 1 property, maybe 2 under rare circumstances

I'll continue to update if I find any others. Feel free to share if you have any that I've missed.

@Account Closed
To be honest I haven't really research the Toronto area much (or any area outside of Nova Scotia) but I've assumed from the headlines I read that there aren't too many properties in my price range in those areas. I'm more of a cash-flow guy than an appreciation guy.

What town did you find the $226k property in? Did you have to rehab it?

@Roy N.

Haven't looked at the rust belt yet, but if you say it's worth looking into I definitely will.
In regards to financing, I've already gone the HELOC route & likely have enough to purchase at least one property. I was just hoping to get a couple on the go rather quickly, with the help of financing. I'm calling around to the banks this week (well, trying to anyway. I'm travelling for work today & tomorrow) to see what each one offers for US financing. I'll post my findings in a separate thread.

@Brandon Turner

Thanks Brandon, I've already plowed through about a half dozen podcasts & will check out the other links as well. Lots of great info on this site. Well done.

@Ali Boone

I guess I'll have to do some more research on the whole Atlanta thing. I'm starting to get the picture that all of the easy money has been made there. You asked about my interest there - it stems from a few things: 1. I have invested there via a hard money loan on my behalf to another investor for a purchase/rehab/sell and it has worked out well so far 2. The company I work for owns some land in Atlanta so I actually do have some contacts there. I only got to visit once, and that was in the middle of the first ice storm this year so I spent most of my time at the airport. 3. I like the economics of Atlanta vs Nova Scotia. I see a lot of growth in Atlanta, and a lot of job losses in Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, it's difficult to find a decent property in Nova Scotia for less than $200k whereas I seem to see a lot in the $50k-$100k range in Atlanta. I guess it all comes down to cash flow. I'll invest on the moon if I can get a decent cash flow!

Thanks for all the welcoming messages guys!

@Ali Boone I can't seem to find anything in my local market that meets the 1% rule so I was hoping to start looking in the US, mainly the Atlanta area. Where I'm stuck right now is financing. I've got about $110k to invest, and ideally I'd find a couple good cash flowing properties in the $50k-$100k range and finance at 50% LTV. My problem is that there doesn't seem to be too many banks that will lend to Canadians, and the ones that do have minimum loans of $75-$100k at 50% LTV, which puts me into the $150-$200k market.

Private money is the obvious solution to that problem, but I was hoping to get a couple deals done on my own to build a bit of a track record before seeking private money.

Thoughts?

Thanks for the insight Paul!