First Rental Property

Hi There,

I hope you are doing well.

Many people believe that the best place to invest their money is in the stock market.

I disagree.

Investing in real estate, and buying a rental property allows you to obtain a much better Return on Investment.

If you are someone who is looking to buy their first rental property, please take a moment and listen to my PODCAST.

In the PODCAST I talk about how you can benefit from:

A) Cash Flow

B) Mortgage Pay down, and;

C) Appreciation.  

I named the PODCAST:

3 Reasons Why Buying A Rental Property Is Better Than Investing In The Stock Market.

In the PODCAST I talk about the Toronto real estate market and Toronto Condos as well.  Having said that, this investment approach can apply to any City that is suitable to invest in.

You can listen to it by clicking on the play button below:

I hope you enjoy the PODCAST.  It is worth listening to!

Happy Investing!

-Neil

Hi There,

I hope you are doing well.

If you are a new real estate investor looking to buy your first rental property, it is crucial that you make smart financial decisions as you navigate the Toronto real estate market.

It is important for you to know that buying a condo in Toronto can be a REALLY bad investment.

It can be a terrible investment if you don’t know what you are doing, and if you forget to do 3 major things…

To find out the 3 reasons why buying a condo in Toronto is the worst investment you will ever make, you can listen to my PODCAST, by pressing on the “play” button below.

Happy Investing!

-Neil.

Hi There,

I hope you are doing well.

I always get asked by new real estate investors where they should buy their first rental property.

There are many cities and countries you can potentially invest in.

My favourite city to invest in is Toronto.

Here is why:

A)  Lack of Supply

If you are not familiar with what is going on with the Toronto real estate market recently, let me tell you.

Prices of properties have been going up at record levels.  This is especially true of “detached homes” both in the City of Toronto, and in the Greater Toronto Area.

Due to the fact that prices are going up with Detached homes, this is now having an effect on the prices of condos in Toronto.

Fewer people can afford the price of detached homes now, so more people are gravitating toward condos.

The lack of supply with detached homes, will cause condos to increase in price as well.  There will be more and more people looking to buy condos in Toronto as the real estate market continues to rise.

Which means that a condo that you buy today will be worth more in the future.

B) People Are Coming

If you don’t know this, let me tell you.

People are coming from all around the world to live in Toronto, and the surrounding areas of Toronto.

Toronto is a beautiful and vibrant multi-cultural city.

As more people continue to come to the Toronto area, this will cause there to be more demand on the housing in Toronto.

With more demand, come increasing prices.

Which again means that if you buy a condo today, it will be worth more in the future.

C)  Toronto Has Jobs

Toronto is the financial “capital” of Canada.

Major banks, Insurance Companies, and Hospitals are big time employers in Toronto.

Not to mention, start up companies, and marketing firms…

Anyone that is familiar with Toronto knows that people commute from all over Ontario to come into Toronto to work.

People drive or take the train to enter the city.

Due the fact that there are so many jobs in Toronto, and that people travel into Toronto to work, this proves to be favourable for the real estate market.

Often people want to ‘ditch’ the commute, and live closer to their jobs.  Especially younger generations.

Lots of people don’t like spending so much time in the car, and want to have more free time.

This is the reason why people move into Toronto, to be closer to their jobs.

This in turn, increases demand for Toronto real estate, as more and more people want to live in the City.

Once again, with increased demand, prices of condos will be going up in price.

Which means that a condo that you buy today, will be worth more in the future.

What Do You Do Now?

We know that people are coming to Toronto, and there is a lack of supply of housing.

We know that this is going to cause condos in the City to rise in price.

So what do you do with this information?

You can:

a) Do nothing about it.

b) Buy a Toronto condo as your first rental property.

The choice is yours.

I know what I would do………….

Happy Investing!

Neil

Hi Folks,

I hope you are doing well.

With real estate prices rising to record levels in the Toronto area, some people are beginning to speculate that condos will soon be priced so high, they will soon be out of the reach of the average buyer.

Could this actually happen?

Seriously, could condo prices rise high enough, that the majority of people will not be able to buy one?

In my personal view… it could happen.

Daniel Tencer of the Huffington Post writes,

“Single-detached home prices in the city of Toronto jumped by 32.3 per cent in a year, and now average $1.35 million. In the surrounding 905 region, detached homes jumped 25.5 per cent and are now on the verge of hitting the $1-million mark, at $957,517.”

For those of you that are not familiar with the Toronto area, the “905 Region” consists of cities surrounding the City of Toronto.

In his article, Daniel mentions that as real estate prices continue to rise, single detached homes remain far out of the reach of most of Toronto’s first time buyers.

Further, Daniel states that:

“Prices for condos in Toronto jumped 13.5 per cent (since 2015) to $471,256.”

Not only did condo prices jump in Toronto, they also went up in price in the “905 Region”.  According to Daniel:

“…the average condo there (in the 905 Region) jumped 18.9 per cent in price in the past year, to $374,792.”

So what does this all mean?

It could mean that Toronto’s home ownership rate is going to start to drop, as some experts have predicted already.

Just take a look at this.

This is the “Average Annual Toronto Sale Price” dating back to 1970.

If prices continue to rise in this manner, as you can see in the chart above, this will result in more people becoming renters for life, unless a major correction in price occurs.

This is where the opportunity lies.

If there is one piece of advice I can give you, it is this…

BUY A CONDO IN TORONTO NOW !

Condos are still affordable and they are a great investment for new real estate investors, looking to buy their first rental property.

Or, they can be a smart investment for the veteran real estate investor, looking to purchase his/her 4th property.

The tenant profile (as long as you do your due diligence) is excellent in Toronto.

I own condos in Toronto myself, and they have been a fantastic investment.

But Remember…

Don’t delay.

Buy now and prosper.

If not, you may become a statistic.

You may be priced out of the Toronto real estate market, like so many other people who did not take action.

Happy Investing!

Neil

Hi There,

I hope you are doing well.

If you don’t know what is going on with the Toronto real estate market, it is time I should fill you in.

To simply put it…

The Toronto real estate market is on fire.

Thus far in 2016, Toronto has experienced significant demand for detached homes.  At the same time there has been a lack of inventory available.

As such this has caused a supply and demand issue, in that there are so few listings available for sale, the demand for these homes is driving prices up at record levels.

If you are from the Greater Toronto Area, or have knowledge of the real estate market there, this is NOT new news for you.

Whether you are from the Greater Toronto Area or not, this could be a great opportunity for you.

Many experts are forecasting that the supply and demand issue in Toronto is going to last for year to come.

The reason for this is because, there are approximately 100,000 new people coming to live in the Greater Toronto Area each year (according to some sources).

Forecasts indicate that the Toronto real estate market is becoming an International real estate market, similar to New York, London, and Hong Kong.

Further to that, experts forecast that over the next 25 years, 4 million new people will be coming to live in the Greater Toronto Area and surrounding areas.

As this unfolds, the cost of detaches homes will continue to sky rocket.  (increase )

This is where there is opportunity for you if you are looking to invest in real estate.

Condos, especially condos in Toronto, are going to be the property type that people gravitate towards.

Condos will be the only property type that most people will be able to afford.  (Some think Toronto’s Middle Class is about to be priced out of the condo market.)

In addition, with the increase of prices, condos will increasingly become a property type that people will be looking to rent.

As a real estate investor, you should be looking to buy Toronto Condos.

I am going to go into more detail in my next blog post.

For now, it is important to remember this:

If you are looking to buy your first rental property, or if you are an experienced real estate investor looking to buy your 5th rental property, there is tremendous opportunity in buying Toronto real estate, in particular, condos in Toronto.

Happy Investing!

-Neil

Hi There!

I hope all is well on your end.

Here is a short video I recorded that explains why:

Property Values Keep Rising In The Greater Toronto Area.

Please watch my short video, and please remember…

Not only am I the Creator of FirstRentalProperty.com, I am also a Real Estate Broker with RE/MAX.  I help people buy and sell real estate in the Greater Toronto Area.

If you have any questions regarding the video, or if you are buying or selling real estate in the Greater Toronto Area, send me an email at:

neil@firstrentalproperty.com

I look forward to hearing from you!

Best Regards,

Neil Uttamsingh | neil@firstrentalproperty.com

Real Estate Broker | RE/MAX Aboutowne | 1235 North Service Road West, Unit 100, Oakville, ON. L6M 2W2

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Hi Friend,

I hope you are doing well.

If you are looking to buy your first rental property, you will benefit by reading this post.

Many experienced real estate investors will tell you that you need to manage your rental property like a “business”.

This is great advice because owning and managing one or more rental properties is indeed a business.

According to Wikipedia, a business is:

“…an organization involved in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers.  Business plan and Business model determine the outcome of an active business operation. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to provide service to its customers.”

As per the definition above, ‘providing services’ to customers is what businesses do.

Many businesses have ‘service agreements’ that they abide by when dealing with their customers.

As an example, let’s look at the service agreements that some major banks have with their customers.

Personal and Commercial Account Managers are often mandated to respond to their customers within 2 hours of being contacted.  This is a service model that some banks have adopted  because ‘customer service’ is very important to these organizations.  These banks understand that by responding to their customers in a timely manner, they are providing them with great customer service.

As a real estate investor and landlord, you need to adopt a model similar to the bank’s  ‘service agreements’.

You may chose not to share your service agreement with your tenant, however, the service agreement is something that you need to understand fully and be committed to.

Here is an example…

A tenant calls you on a Friday morning in the middle of the Summer.  They leave you a voicemail message letting you know that the Air Conditioner unit in their house has stopped working, and they have asked that you give them a call back when you can.

It is my firm belief that as a proactive real estate investor and landlord, you should be responding to your tenant the same day in which they have contacted you, no matter what the matter is.

As such in this example above, you should be getting back to them on Friday as well.

The important thing to note is that you may not have any answer for them nor a solution for their problem when you call them back.  That does not matter.  What does matter is that you are calling them back promptly.

In the example above, you may have no contacts for repair men that you could call to fix or replace the air conditioner.  That is okay.  As long as you communicate with your tenant and let them know that you are looking after their concern, that is what matters.

Naturally when new landlords do not know how to fix something, or when they don’t know who they can call to come and fix something, they delay  responding to their tenant. This should never be done…

So in summary, when your tenant calls you any issue at all, you need to respond to them in a timely manner.

Having a ‘service agreement‘ and responding to your tenant the same day is my advice to you.

If you stay committed to doing this, you will differentiate yourself in your tenant’s mind from all of their past, sub-par landlords.

Happy Investing!

Regards,

Neil Uttamsingh

ps: If you are looking to buy your first rental property, sign up for the First Rental Property Newsletter by entering your email address and name into the top right hand corner of the blog.  If you do this, you will receive tips and tricks from experienced real estate investors on how to buy your first rental property!

Hi Friend,

I hope you are doing well.

If you are looking to purchase your first rental property, you may have a question or two about rent collection.

If you do, that is normal.

A lot of new real estate investors have questions regarding this topic.

I often get asked by new landlords how they should be collecting their rent from their tenants.

There of course is a variety of ways in which you can do this.

In this blog post, I am going to outline for you a number of these methods as well as some of the potential pros and cons of collecting rent in these various manners.

Here are the methods in which you can use to collect rent from your tenant.

1) Post Dated Cheques

When your tenant first moves into your rental property, you can ask them at the beginning of their lease term to provide you with a series of post dated cheques.  Many landlords do this, because this is a method that works.

This mode of rent collection is both easy for the landlord and easy for the tenant.

It is easy for the landlord because, they do not have to make monthly trips to the rental property to pick up the rent.

It is easy for the tenant because they do not have to arrange their schedule and make time to meet their landlord each month.

There is also a big downside with collecting rent in this manner.

Since the landlord is not travelling to and meeting with the tenant each month to pick up rent, there is reduced opportunity to meet the tenant face to face and build a strong relationship.

2) E-mail Money Transfer / Bank Transfer

In this day and age, technology is awesome!  There are new options available to us in the world of banking than ever before. An example  of this is the email money transfer.    Tenants can now transfer to their landlords their monthly rent in the form of an email money transfer.  This is an efficient way to collect rent and it saves time for both the landlord and tenant.  Scheduling a time to meet to pick up rent in person can sometimes be challenging.  This mode of rent collection solves that problem.

3) Pick Up Rent In Person – Cash or Cheque

Although not practical in every case, this is my favourite mode rent collection.  This is my favourite mode of rent collection because it allows you as the landlord to build a strong relationship with your tenant on an ongoing basis.

Not only does it allow you to build an ongoing, strong relationship with your tenant, this strategy allows you to check on the property on a monthly basis.  If you have great tenants, you get to see each and every month how well they are taking care of the property.  On the flip side, if you have tenants that you are not too sure about, this method allows you to carefully observe the condition of the property.

So there you have it.  These are three modes of rent collection.  There are other ways in which you can collect rent, however, as a new real estate investor, you should focus your efforts on one of these 3 methods.

Happy Investing!

Neil Uttamsingh

ps: If you are looking to buy your first rental property, sign up for the First Rental Property Newsletter.  You can do this by providing your name and email address at the top right hand corner of the blog.  If you do, in the Newsletter you will receive tips and tricks from experienced real estate investors on how to buy your first rental property.

pps: I am a Licensed Realtor in Ontario and I help people like you buy their first rental property everyday! I personally own Hamilton real estate, Oakville real estate and Toronto real estate.   If you need help purchasing your first rental property or your next rental property, write to me at NEIL@FIRSTRENTALPROPERTY.COM. I will help you negotiate the best price, terms and conditions on your rental property. Buying in the US? No problem!  I will refer you to one of my trusted partners.  Happy Investing!  🙂

Hi Friend,

I hope you are doing well.

If you are a person who is looking to buy your first rental property, the topic of this blog post will be of great interest to you.

Currently I have 5 mortgages.  This is because I own 5 properties.  When I first started investing in real estate, I had no idea how to obtain more than one mortgage.  This was back in the year 2005.  Since then I have gone on to purchase Oakville real estate, Hamilton real estate and Toronto real estate.

It amazes me how few people know that they are able to obtain more than one mortgage.  The bulk of society (who have mortgages) are conditioned to believe that they are only able to have one mortgage at a given time.

If you are a new real estate investor, you need to know that:

You can have more than one mortgage.

Having more than one mortgage is essential if an individual is looking to build a real estate portfolio.

Dealing With Non-Believers

Whenever there is a minority of people doing something different than the majority of people, the minority is often critisized.  Staying with this theme, I often witness single mortgage holders being criticized by multiple mortgage holders.

Non believers make the assumption that:

“You cannot have more than one mortgage.”

Who Are The Non Believers?

Non believers are people that tell you that you CANNOT have more than one mortgage.

There are always people giving advice and false information to new real estate investors.  As a new investor, you have to very careful who you listen to and who you take advice from.  I have said over and over, that you should only take advice from someone who has accomplished something that you are trying to achieve yourself.

How Does a Real Estate Investor Obtain More Than One Mortgage?

In order to obtain more than one mortgage, you have to speak to a Mortgage Broker or Mortgage Specialist who has experience in getting multiple mortgages approved.  Some real estate investors are told that Mortgage Brokers are the only ones who are able to grant more than one mortgage to a real estate investor.  This is not always the case.  In many situations, major financial institutions are able to grant an individual borrower more than one mortgage.

In Summary

In summary, it is absolutely possible for someone to have two mortgages at the same time.  If you are new to real estate investing and want to purchase a rental property, you can feel reassured knowing that you can obtain two mortgages through the help and guidance of either a mortgage broker or a bank.

Happy Investing!

Best Regards,

Neil

ps: If you are serious about buying your first rental property, take a quick second and sign up for The First Rental Property Newsletter.  You can sign up in the top right hand corner of the blog.  When you sign up, you will get tips and tricks from experienced real estate investors on how to buy your first rental property, delivered straight to your Inbox, free of charge!

Hi Friend,

New real estate investors are just like experienced real estate investors.  The similarity between these two groups is that they are both afraid of the same things when it comes to real estate investing.

The experienced real estate investors have learned how to deal with the fears that they experience.  Whereas, the new real estate investors have not yet learned how to handle or cope with the fear that they experience surrounding real estate investing.

When I first started investing in real estate back in 2005, there were many things that I did not know and there were many things that I was afraid of.  I was able to fight past these fears and I have since gone on to purchase Oakville real estate, Hamilton real estate, and Toronto real estate.

Here is a complete list of the:

Top 10 Things That All Experienced Real Estate Investors Dread…

1)  CALLING TENANTS

When a real estate investor has to call their tenant, they become nervous because at that time there may be something that needs to be fixed.  At this time the item that needs to be fixed could be big or small.  The investor may have no idea how to fix the item, and may not know anyone that they can call in order to have the item fixed.  As  a result of this, the investor delays calling their tenant, because they are avoiding the problem.

What can you do about it?

You must set up a time and call your tenant every “first of the month.”

•  Force yourself to do it.
•  Make it a routine.
•  Put it in your calendar.

There should be at the very least, communication via telephone with your tenant once a month.  Email and text is not as effective communication versus over the phone.  Face to face is the best.

2)  REPAIRS AND MAINTENANCE

All real estate investors are  afraid of the potential repairs and maintenance that arise with their rental properties.  They are afraid of this because they always want to remain profitable, and they don’t want to lose money on their investment.  When people lose money on an investment it causes them to begin to question their investment..

What can you do about it?

Have a reliable person you can always call upon for repairs and maintenance.  Deal with repairs and maintenance issues as they arise.  Don’t put them off.  If you put them off they can become worse with time.  As such, a repair that may have cost $200 may end up costing you $2000 due to increased damage to the property.

3)  RENT COLLECTION

Experienced real estate investors worry about rent collection and if a tenant will pay rent on time.

What can you do about it?

Be firm.  Do not bend the rules.  If the rent is late, you submit the proper notice.  Make sure that the tenant keeps their word.  If the rent is late and the tenant says that they will provide it by a certain date, if the rent is not provided by the date, don’t’ keep on giving them grace.  Call them on it, and enforce the non payment of rent through the proper means.

4)  OPERATING LINE

Some experienced real estate investor worry about their operating lines going “too high”, and their revenues not being sufficient enough in order to bring it down.  More eloquently put, they worry about drawing too much of their operating line, and  fear that the revenue (rent collected) will not be sufficient in order to pay down the operating line.

What can you do about it?

Think like a bank..  Some Canadian Banks like BMO Bank of Montreal  lend 10 to 15 percent of a company’s gross annual sales in the form of an operating line.  Consider only borrowing that amount, and thus drawing your operating line to that amount.  This will give you peace of mind and will ensure that yhou are not over extending yourself.

5)  WATER LEAKS

Experienced real estate investors worry about leaks in the bathrooms and the damage it will cause to the house, overall if not looked after.

What can you do about it?

Inspect regularly for water damage.  Make sure you do caulking on a regular basis. If you notice water seepage early, make sure that you do the work to repair the damage before the damage becomes more severe.  Have someone inspect the property who has an eye for detecting water damage.

Interested in learning about the NEXT 5 Things That All Experienced Real Estate Investors Dread?

Check back into First Rental Property for the conclusion of this blog post…

Happy Investing!

Best Regards,

Neil Uttamsingh

ps: I am an experienced real estate investor and licensed Realtor.  I help people like you everyday buy their first rental property.  If you are interested in purchasing  Toronto real estate, Ottawa real estate, Brampton real estate, Hamilton real estate, Richmond Hill real estate, Oakville real estate, Mississauga real estate, North York real estate, Kitchener real estate, or Brantford real estate send me an email at NEIL@FIRSTRENTALPROPERTY.COM.