Investing and Personal Finance
From the category archives:
Some time ago Mike and his wife exchanged comments about having tenants pay off your mortgage. My mother takes the same position as Mrs. Pillars does: tenants paying off your mortgage is a good thing. With respect to both frighteningly intelligent women, I’m suspicious this is a poor way to think about the investment.
Say you [...]
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This guest post was written by Investing Thesis: Credits Toward Financial Freedom – a personal finance and investing site from a Canadian perspective. If you like this article, I would encourage you to subscribe to our articles
With the number of homes now in foreclosure many people, home buyers and investors alike are jumping to take [...]
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Mr. Cheap & I have published a rather large number of posts where we point out that SOMETIMES real estate agents are not your friend, associate or even on your side and they definitely can’t ALWAYS be trusted. Heck, sometimes people DO use a friend as a real estate agent and SOME agents must [...]
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Attention: There’s a wager riding on this post. If you’ve done something like this (or know someone who has), please leave a comment with details! Specifically we’re interested in a) how much of the persons OWN money had to be invested, b) what their construction experience was BEFORE they did this for the first time [...]
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Quite some time ago I posted on the temperament of a landlord and how some people just aren’t cut out for it. My focus on that post were people who walked away from disagreements or would always give in, and how real estate investing would eat them alive. In another post, small-scale landlords, I touched [...]
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“Almost all neglect the properties they manage and take kickbacks from suppliers and subcontractors who overcharge the property manager’s client in order to pay the kickbacks.” – John T. Reed
People selling real estate advice almost always advocate using property management companies. John T. Reed suggests they do this to overcome the objection “I don’t want [...]
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In a recent comment, on a very old post (“5 Ways to Make (or lose) Money With Investment Properties – Part 5 – Buying at a Discount”), Awesome asks “i live in Toronto, how and where do I find the deals”. I found this a perplexing question, as the assumption seems to be that there’s [...]
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I’ve had a draft of this post sitting in the Four Pillars draft queue for over a month, and after a recent question by JN it seemed time to finish it and post it. While I hope it gives a decent overview of finding, selecting and finalizing a tenancy for a rental property, please keep [...]
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Because of dropping interest rates – mortgage brokers have been falling over themselves this year to try to get clients to refinance their home mortgage and get a new mortgage at a lower rate. Brokers of course make money from deals so this is a good deal for them. The idea of having a lower [...]
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In real estate there is a euphemism “this property would be ideal for a foreign buyer” which means that it’s overpriced and they need a buyer who is ignorant of local market value to pay that much for it. In smaller communities in Ontario a variant on this is “I’m going to try to [...]
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Valuation of real estate properties is quite difficult – in fact it can really only be done within a fairly broad range since in my opinion it is just too hard to try to accurately predict the sale price of a house. The title of this post should have been “How to guess at real [...]
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In real estate there are listing which can be called “pocket listings“, “in pocket listings”, or “exclusive listings”. In each case the idea is the same, an agent *DOESN’T* advertise the property in order not to share the commission with another agent (by representing both the buyer and seller) or to only share the commission [...]
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It wasn’t long after I’d bought my investment condo that I was called a slumlord for the first time (jokingly by a friend’s father). I think most people who rent out real estate get called this at one point or another, and it’s a popular view of people in the business of providing housing.
A slumlord [...]
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I was in Tim Horton’s recently, and overheard two men talking. One of them was saying “I got cash from him in the first month, but I haven’t gotten anything since then.” Perking up at a real estate discussion, I casually eavesdropped. They were on their way out, but I heard him continue saying “I [...]
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Dave Peniuk and Julie Broad from BC have been a part of the Canadian Personal Finance blog scene for about a year now, posting regularly and doing guest posts on real estate topics. In addition to their blog, they offer a newsletter, and I predicted to Mike quite a while ago that they would eventually [...]
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I recently guest post about refinancing home mortgages that is a topic I’ve recently been interested in. As with many financial issues, there isn’t an easy answer whether you should do this or not, and it depends heavily on your personal situation and how much risk you’re willing to expose yourself to with respect [...]
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I’m gearing up to buy my second investment property. Now that I’ve been at the university for a year, settled in pretty well (it’s not looking like they’re going to kick me out) and know the area a bit better, it’s time to consider buying instead of renting.
My plan is to be here at [...]
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Rent-to-own (also known as lease-option) is a popular real estate strategy in the US and has been making its way into Canada in “get-rich-quick through real estate” circles.
This agreement, between a landlord and tenant, involves the landlord selling the tenant the OPTION to buy the property at a fixed price at some point in the [...]
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