5 Strategies to Generate Income as a Full-time Real Estate Investor

At some point in your journey as a real estate investor, you may develop the desire to quit your current job to pursue real estate investing full-time. 

It sounds exciting, right?  It is, but you’ll need to have a solid plan to replace your income before jumping ship!  Before you quit your full time job there are many questions to ask your self. You will have seen the countless TV programs on property "flipping" and how easy it all looks when the tradesmen are lining up on the Home and Garden Channel to work on the projects and you never really see the stress behind the job.

It may be that you have recently bought a property, done some renovations and "flipped it" and perhaps made your whole years salary in one flip! This would give you a great…

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An Easy Checklist for Moving to a New Home

So you’re moving to a new home, what do you need to get done?

The planning and coordination involved with moving can certainly overwhelm but as long as you take the process one step at a time, you will be settling into your new home and relaxing quickly. This list is comprehensive but will cover everything you’ll need to consider for your moving day. Soon enough, you’ll be able to cruise through your moving day without having to panic.

Before you start to pack, take the time to plan your moving day to make it as stress-free as possible. Let’s face it, moving is stressful. We’re here to help you figure out exactly what you should be doing before, during, and even after your move. Moving all your belongings from one place to another is hard, and so is…

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Are you ready to be a landlord?

The single family home has, unfortunately, become unaffordable for many people.

With roller coaster housing prices and more people finding that renting is better idea than buying, there will be more people turning to renting.

So you’ve made the fortuitous decision to invest in real estate and now you want the revenue stream to begin raining down on you. But are you ready? Below we provide a list of items to help prepare you to be an effective and fair first-time landlord!

NB- We are assuming your building allows rentals so you are not breaking any strata laws in listing your place.

Know your Tenants Rights and the Law

Learn about landlord and tenant laws in your province to ensure you’re prepared in case things go wrong—and they will. The…

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Canadian Real Estate Defies COVID, Sales up 63% in June

National home sales shot up in June, with prices also climbing steadily, according to June data released by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).

Transactions were up about 15.2%, while the average property price was up 6.5% from June 2019 to $539,000. Excluding the country’s most expensive markets, Toronto and Vancouver, the average price falls to $432,000.

“While June’s housing numbers were mostly back at normal levels, we are obviously not back to normal at this point,” said Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s senior economist. “I guess the bigger picture is one of cautious optimism. The market has recovered much faster than many would have thought, but what happens later this year remains a big question mark. That said, daily tracking suggests that…

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What is a Subject to Sale offer?

Buying a New Home Subject to the Sale of your Old Home

Selling the home that you live in and purchasing a new property with the proceeds can be a tricky affair. You need to get your timing exactly correct. You should also try and get the best possible price for your existing property and pay the minimum possible for your new home.

There is an option that Home Buyers may have when buying their new home, called a subject to sale. This subject allows Home Buyers to purchase their new home, subject to their current home selling by a certain date. The simplest reason for doing this is to line up the sales of these properties for financing and moving day reasons – it gives the family a chance to move out of their old house and into their new house without…

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Buying a mobile home in BC - What do you need to know.

Buying and selling manufactured homes

Most first-time home buyers only consider site-built single-family homes, but have you considered buying a mobile home or manufactured home? Mobile and manufactured homes, while not as popular, have one big advantage: They typically offer more space or amenities for the money.

Mobile homes, also known as “manufactured homes," are built in a factory and placed on a trailer chassis to allow them to be moved. Mobile homes are sometimes placed in a mobile home park or on leased land. In these cases, the owner rents a space or leases land, but owns the mobile home itself. Alternatively, mobile home owners can place mobile homes on land they own or are buying under contract.

Today's companies manufacture homes at…

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6 Smartest Moves for First-Time Home Buyers

Ready to buy a home? Be prepared: With inventory tight and prices rising, this is a tricky time to be entering the market.

Your biggest challenge is that you’re probably bringing less cash to the table, which makes it harder to compete with more seasoned buyers.

What you do have, however, is flexibility—you’re not counting on selling your current place to fund the deal. That means you can play nice guy with sellers who want to stay put until they land their next place.

Here are the best moves for you to make as you begin to enter the housing market.

1. Lock Up Your Financials

Before you start shopping, clean up your credit and save for a bigger down payment so that you’ll qualify for a better mortgage rate and avoid costly fees. Step one:…

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Understanding the BC First Time Home Buyer Incentive Program

You may have heard of the incentive programs that the federal government has created to try to entice first time home buyers into the real estate market, but how much do you really understand? Is this something for you?

The government of Canada has a couple of programs that are designed to get first time buyers on the property ladder. Read on to see if they are right for you.

1) The Home Buyers' Plan (HBP). This is a program that allows you to withdraw funds from your Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs) to buy or build a qualifying home for yourself or for a related person with a disability. The HBP allows you to pay back the withdrawn funds within a 15-year period. So what are the rules?

• Permits two first-time buyers in the same…

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Coronavirus and your finances - Tips to help

If you have questions about the coronavirus and how the current situation might impact your finances, you’re not alone.

We’ve all heard the words “unprecedented times” more than ever over the last month. While we deal with so much uncertainty around us, it’s important to recognize that there are still actions we can take to help protect ourselves.

With financial markets crashing and the loss of a number of jobs, Canadians are questioning their financial future. It is yet to be determined the real economic impact of the coronavirus as data is changing quickly with limited time to analyze. There are indications that joblessness will increase in the short term, which can be scary; however, the government and lenders are stepping up to aid households in…

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What is a good credit score?

Your credit scores are an important aspect of your financial profile.

They may be used to determine some of the most important financial factors in your life, such as whether you’ll be able to lease a vehicle, qualify for a mortgage or even land that cool new job.

And considering 71 percent of Canadian families carry debt in some form (think mortgages, car loans, lines of credit, personal loans or student debt), good credit health should be a part of your current and future plans.  High, low, positive, negative – there’s more to your scores than you might think. And depending on where your numbers fall, your lending and credit options will vary. So what is a good credit score? What about a great one? Let’s take a look at the numbers.

In a…

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