Posts Tagged ‘Finance’

Getting Blood From A Stone, or Proper Planning Isn’t Always Perfect

I got myself involved in a discussion in the comments section of an article over at Landlord Rescue the other day and it gave me the inspiration to expand on it over here. The article began with a question from a reader, one that’s been asked many times, “how can I hire a decent contractor/handyman without being ripped off?” I talked about working with trades people before, but a point was brought up in the comments that is worth noting: once you own the property, repairs and maintenance have to be dealt with regardless of how much cash you have sitting in the bank. Believe me, I know this lesson and I’m still learning it. Read more…

Canadian Real Estate Blog Carnival, 2nd Edition

All the submissions are finally in, some just in time, and there were a lot of them. There were lots of words to filter through my little head. I didn’t even do that much reading when I was studying to become a Realtor (just kidding, that was for Rachelle).

I can honestly say that there were many excellent articles, all on topics that are very relevant to what we do as landlords, property managers and real estate investors. Choosing any kind of winner from all the submissions was a herculean task, so it’s a good thing they asked me to do it.

If you were looking for the First Edition of the Canadian Real Estate Blog it’s located here. Read more…

Planning A Major Upgrade

So you’ve decided that your two bachelor apartments would be better off as a two bedroom apartment, or an unused storage room would make an excellent laundry room or fitness room. A major upgrade requires a lot of planning, otherwise you might end up spending more time and money than is necessary, or worse yet, you might find out part way through your upgrade that the space would be more valuable if it were used for something other than what you are converting it to.

A term that is often used when discussing the value of investment real estate is “highest and best use”. The current use of a property may not be the “highest and best use”, in other words, there may be a more valuable use for the property. An example might be where you owned a trailer court in an area that had a shortage of apartments and an oversupply of trailer court lots. It might be possible to convert the use of the property to a more valuable use by demolishing the trailer court and building an apartment building on the same site. Read more…

What Would You Do With An Extra Dollar?

One very important question in personal financial planning is “What would you do with an extra dollar?”. Whether it’s a bonus from work, or a $20 bill inside a birthday card, extra money will come to us from time to time. When this happens, you basically have two choices: save it or spend it. On one hand you can hide it under your bed or invest it, while on the other hand you can spend it on something useful or on something frivolous.

It should be obvious that a financially savvy person would prefer to save their extra money rather than spend it on something wasteful, but there are many schools of thought on where your extra dollar should go. Some believe you should aggressively attack debt before you even begin to think about investing, while others say that high-interest debt is your first priority and then you can pay down other debt at the same time as investing. Read more…

Becoming A Landlord Series – Part 4: Keeping The Boat Afloat

Up to this point, I’ve talked about what kind of person does well at being a landlord and what kind of skills and experience you will need. I also briefly talked about what things to look for when buying your first property and roughly how to go about finding it.

The subject of property management and being a landlord is a broad one that I will dissect over time in future posts, but today I would like to talk about the point that I feel is the most important one to remember once you enter this entirely different world. Read more…

Becoming A Landlord Series – Part 3: Pulling The Trigger

In part one and two of this series I discussed some of the qualities you should have to be a landlord, and some of the things you should do you get yourself ready. In this third part of the series, I would like to talk about some things you should consider when you decide to finally cross the line from being not a landlord to being a landlord.

If you followed my advice from part two, then you should already have a pretty good chunk saved up for a down payment and an idea of the locations that you’d like to start looking for property. Your next step is to go to the bank and find out how much you can comfortably borrow. With this number in hand you begin your search. Read more…

Becoming A Landlord Series – Part 2: How To Prepare Yourself

In Part 1 of my Becoming A Landlord series, I tried to point out some of the pitfalls of being a landlord and I’m glad I didn’t scare you away.

Let’s approach Part 2 as if you are fresh out of the cocoon of high school or university and you’ve landed your first job. You know you want invest in real estate, but aren’t quite sure what the first step is. Unless you somehow have a large pile cash laying around, you’re going to have to work your way up from the bottom like I did. Read more…

Becoming A Landlord Series – Part 1: Do You Have The Right Stuff

It takes a unique individual to be a landlord. You have to have the right set of skills to be able to deal with the variety of issues that come up on a daily basis. This business is easy to get into, but not so easy to get out of. The lessons you learn can be beneficial and/or costly. This article is not intended to scare you, but you need to be realistic with yourself, because becoming a landlord is a bigger step than some people think. Read more…

My Gameplan For Success

One day I had an epiphany: I don’t want to work. More specifically, I don’t want to work at a nine-to-five job for the next forty years. I would prefer to spend my time experiencing things that are fun, exciting, and improve my life, or the life of someone else, in some way. to get myself from being a working stiff to living a life of leisure I needed a game plan.

Plotting your game plan for success is a simple three-step process:

• • • Determine where you are now (A)
    • Define what success is to you (B)
    • Figure out how to get from A to B

Pretty simple, eh? The last step might need to be a little more detailed.

By creating my personal income statement and statement of net worth, I was able to get an idea of where I stood financially and identify the areas of my situation that needed to be improved upon and which areas needed to be eliminated. You can probably guess that it was income that needed to be increased and debt that needed to be eliminated. Read more…

Why I Became A Landlord

I think it’s only fitting to begin my new blog about being a landlord by talking about why I became one. If you were to ask me why I became a landlord, my first answer would be to manage my properties better, but the reason I own properties is to create wealth. So, the real question becomes: why do I want to be wealthy?

Ever since I was a young child, I knew that I didn’t want to be poor. I was never greedy or money hungry, I just knew that I wanted to live comfortable life. That used to mean that I wanted to be able to buy things, but it is now starting to mean that I want to be able to experience more things. I also knew that I didn’t want to be tied to a nine-to-five job until I was 65.

I spent a good part of my teenage summers mowing lawns, washing cars, walking dogs, and even hunting for empty beer bottles all in an effort to earn some money over and above the allowance my parents paid me for doing chores around the house.

Earning extra money was always easier when I had a defined goal to work toward, whether it was a new bike, roller blades, or whatever, but the amount I could make was always determined by the number of hours I could work multiplied by the wage I could negotiate. This is when I learned that I needed to work smarter, not harder. Read more…