Sunday, May 31, 2009

Employment Diversity and Effect on Job Loss during the Recession

Thanks to Don Campbell for keying me on this fundamental.





When the Conference Board of Canada publishes its quarterly economic outlook for Canadian cities we take a particular interest in how they rate the diversity in the amount of industry groups for the town.

Diversity is a strong indicator for how resilient the town will be in the future when shocks to the local economy happen.


Resilience, rhymes with Brilliance, is defined as “the power to return to the original form after being bent or stretched; elasticity; buoyancy; ability to recover readily from illness or adversity




During the current recession the oil and gas sector in Alberta had overall job losses as the price of oil faltered and investment in Oil sands was postponed. Edmonton and Calgary have weathered the storm of job losses (in fact they gained 0.2% and 0.4% new jobs respectively) in part because the cities were diverse outside of oil and gas.

Toronto with its massive job market (almost as big as the combined labor force of Alberta and Saskatchewan) is an example of great resiliency. The number of people employed in Toronto has decreased 2.0% vs. the 2.3% loss for the entire province of Ontario (Ottawa has a less diverse economy and lost 4.8% --more jobs than the provincial average).

Toronto has survived the Nortel crash and it has survived the NAFTA transition away from manufacturing in the past...and will survive the global financial meltdown and the auto sector mess today.

As for the anomalies in Quebec and Vancouver...who cares!


I won't even begin to explain Montreal and Quebec City because I would never invest their anyway....one of the most anti-landlord places in North America and Vancouver is currently the real estate bubble capital of Canada because the homes are not affordable.




In closing:

Why should the diversity the local economy is a factor to look at when looking at investing in real estate in a town?

Diversity = More jobs created in good times and less jobs lost in bad times = higher population growth in good times and less population loss in bad times = more stable real estate investments.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Updated Economic Information Source List

Royal Lepage Price Index
AOL real estate
Zillow
Standard and Poors
CMHC
Statistics Canada
Canadian Real Estate Association and their particular local boards
Alberta Finance
City of Edmonton
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
Alberta Energy
Federal Reserve Bank and their particular state representatives
Moody's ($300/report)
IMF (International Monetary Fund)
World Bank
Canadian Bankers Association
Trends Research Institute ($185/year)
Urban Futures Institute
University of Toronto Innovation Systems Research Network
Centre for Urban Studies at the University of Toronto
Economic Cycle Research Institute
Urbanation
Centre For Spatial Economics
Genworth Canada
Conference Board of Canada ($5,225/year)
RBC Economics
Scotia Economics
BMO Capital Markets
TD Economics
CIBC World Markets

University Towns Are Great Environments for Business and Are Still Prospering




Interesting article from ABC money news that you can take a look at here.


States that university towns are not facing the "squeeze" the recession.


Here's their stats:

  • Provo, Utah, where the university is located, has added jobs to its economy. Over the last year, there's been a 2.97 percent rise in jobs in Provo; the national unemployment rate has now hit 8.9 percent.
  • There are also business booms in college towns like College Station, Texas (home to Texas A&M and up 2.06 percent); Baton Rouge, La. (up 2.16 percent), which Louisiana State calls home; and Durham, N.C. (up 2.49 percent), where Duke University have been major drivers of economic activity.
Why?

Research universities tend to be great environments for business, as they're flush with cheap, highly talented labor (recent grads), and the massive research and development budgets universities have. Plenty of the world's top companies, including Dell, Cisco Systems and Google, began in university settings.


So how does this effect the real estate market?

Going to Zillow (why can't we have this site in Canada) we can take a look:




The Zindex for Provo shows that prices have fallen 8.8% from last year and about 15% off the peak. In comparison, according the same ZINDEX, America has a whole has fallen 14.2% and 21.8% from the peak.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Have a telescopic view and MAKE MONEY

To make money in real estate...in fact any investment vehicle, you must have a long term view. Look what the numbers tell you about the future.


How do we determine a future in real estate: we study fundamentals from people who don't care if I buy real estate or not.

So here's a sample of what I look at:




From this Graph, I want to pick the winner so lets analyze this data compiled from the Alberta Governement.

Compared to all of Canada, Ontario, and BC. Alberta's population increased the most, it lost the least amount of jobs, and its wages increased the most.

Based on these facts, I'm going to do a a thought exercise:

If population of the province increases won't the demand for housing increase?

Won't it make sense that there will be more renters? Could this not lower vacancy rates and drive up the rents?

In addition, 2-3 years from now won't there be more people available to buy homes? Won't this drive demand for homes higher than any other province?

And if the wages are increasing and the number of jobs are stable won't that mean that more people can afford housing?


Ok, let's look at GDP

In 2008 Alberta was near the top in the country in percentage increase in GDP and according to TD bank, this year Alberta will be near the bottom in GDP in terms of change in GDP and in 2010 will be back near the top.

What does this tell us: a temporary downturn where you can invest on sale.

As an aside, TD expects BC will lead the country for GDP growth in 2010. Why? Let's think: where is the location of the biggest sporting event in the world? umm Vancouver. Wouldn't having millions of people visiting and the construction that goes along with the Olympics have a huge effect on their economy?

Of course.

Study the numbers, see what they are telling you and take action. If you get stuck in the moment without a long term point of view your chasing shadows and will lose.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

OIL PRICES SET TO SPIKE AGAIN?





Oil and gas prices over the years have become a huge expense. More than ever people are watching world oil prices and more specifically the prices that they pay at the pump.

I came across an article in the Economist that predicts that

“The precipitous fall in oil prices over the past year may just be paving the way for another spike"

See Article Here.


After reading the article, I have to say I agree with some of the key points.

First, at the end of the day, world oil prices are a function of supply and demand. We know that currently demand has been on the decline because of the global recession. However, over time, world economies will start to grow again and invariably increase their consumption of oil. When this happens, prices will start to rise again.

The oil future market is already pricing in a increase in oil price (just look at the recent run up in oil prices; from $35/barrel to $60/barrel.

Secondly, oil companies across the world have been cutting their production and exploration activities (given the lower prices for their product). Now this is fine because demand for oil is much lower, but this level of supply will not be sufficient when world economic activity picks up. So what will happen? Prices will increase substantially.

Therefore, oil rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and Canada will benefit tremendously - just look back at the oil boom in Alberta over the past 4 years. The oil boom in Alberta occurred because the oil price was rising, oil profits were increasing and oil companies were investing billions of dollars to extract oil in the province ($100-$150 billion dollars in Alberta alone!)

History always repeats itself and so it looks like the stage is being set for another oil boom.

So this might be a time to get back into oil and invest into regions that will benefit from higher oil prices.


Ajayan Sritharan
Real Experts

Friday, May 22, 2009

Do you want facts or sugar coating?

Here are sample of my sources no particular order:


CMHC
Statistics Canada
Canadian Real Estate Association and their particular local boards
Alberta Finance
City of Edmonton
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
Alberta Energy
Federal Reserve Bank and their particular state representatives
Moody's ($300/report)
IMF (International Monetary Fund)
World Bank
Canadian Bankers Association
Trends Research Institute ($185/year)
Urban Futures Institute
University of Toronto Innovation Systems Research Network
Centre for Urban Studies at the University of Toronto
Economic Cycle Research Institute
Urbanation
Centre For Spatial Economics
Genworth
Conference Board of Canada ($5,225/year)
RBC Economics
Scotia Economics
BMO Capital Markets
TD Economics
CIBC World Markets

Be contrarian: Be a real estate Hero




I often get asked why are you investing in Alberta when you are from Toronto? It's an excellent question. I'm not going to say the GTA is a great place to invest into and hope the property will do well.

Simply put: I never HOPE. I always make expectations based on fundamentals.

I can invest anywhere in North America, I choose Edmonton because the fundamentals show growth long term.

I know my goal is to make money for my partners, in order to achieve that goal I have to do things that are uncomfortable.

It can be hard sometimes pushing through. I have to get past the dominant thinking from my friends and colleagues, many who are rightfully scared, to achieve these goals.


When things go as planned, It may look like luck from the outside...It requires constant diligence, education and action.

So what does this mean for you? study the fundamentals especially from people who present facts and don't care if you buy real estate or not.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Lost your Job? Frustrated? Let's Blow up some houses!




It has come to this in real estate in the US...where the economic fundamentals in some neighborhoods are at a point where it makes more sense to destroy a subdivision than it was to actually find a buyer.

I went to Rochester and I was amazed to see that jobs were leaving faster than people were. Imagine a place that nothing real big has happened before the 50's. The place is dead...33% of all buildings in some neighborhoods are abandoned (I get emails from folks selling real estate in these neighborhoods, I blogged about my research here).

According to Wikipedia there are 123,833 homeless people in the States.

Something to think about

Cheers

If real estate is not going up...MAKE IT!




I’m getting excited thinking about how we could position ourselves after this meltdown. Not only because of US tax policies, but because of they’re crazy immigration policies as well.

The US is clamping down hard on their skilled worker visa known as the H1-B. Thousands of highly skilled workers will be out of a job or have already lost their jobs (see here).

Major US employers (IT companies such as GOOGLE, MICROSOFT, all US Banks, top financial services and manufacturing companies) who use these skilled employees will be forced to let them go by April 2010 because they will be denied visas.



These companies are going to lose their competitive advantage.

What are they going to do?


If I’m Harper I'm revamping our immigration policies ASAP

If I'm Dalton I'm calling IBM, I'm calling Microsoft I'm calling XEROX, DELL, Sun Microsystems and ask them what would it take to move those skilled jobs over to the GTA.

If I’m Dalton, I’m calling CPP, OMERS and OTTP to partner with them to create a centre of excellence in pension fund management in Toronto.



If I'm Dalton I'm going to partner with our chartered banks to set up a centre of excellence in risk management - the world wants to know why our banks are amazing. I'm going to ensure Bank of America, Citi, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo to set up shop on Bay St

If I'm Stelmech, I’m calling every Silicon Valley corporation...Apple, EBay, Intel, HP, and Google …to move a massive chunk of their operations to Edmonton and invest millions in U of A - turn E-town into Waterloo West.

If I'm Stelmech, I’m going to turn Calgary into an energy power house...not just in Oil and Gas, but in alternative energy as well.

If I'm Canada I’m rolling out the red carpet at every border. I'm going to bring back the Canadian spirit of aspiration, inspiration and perspiration …I’m also going to buy lots of real estate in the GTA, Calgary and Edmonton.



CHA CHING!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Why we don't speculate - We Buy cashflow properties in the best neighborhoods of the strongest towns and we always buy undermarket value


Waiting in line to buy pre-construction when you don't know what the market value will be when the product gets built could be dangerous and expensive



Check out this article here

Buyers put $20,000 in deposit money to tie up property for $400,000. Today those same units are sold for $355,000.


That's a loss of $45,000. Scared investors try to walk away thinking that they will just lose their deposit are instead being sued by the developer for $75,000.


Do your due diligence, focus on the fundamentals...buy properties under today's market value and keep for cashflow.


US needs us more than we need them!!!!

Why we invest in Alberta:

  • Shell Canada estimates that there is 2 Trillion Barrels of Oil in Alberta
  • Other major sources of oil: Venezuela, Middle East (Saudia Arabia, Iran and Iraq), Russia and North Western Africa. Which one of these countries are your friend?
  • Oil Prices have to increase: most major suppliers are below the break even point
  • $25 Trillion in stimulus...everywhere around the world needs our resources
  • Chinese are becoming serious players. India and China has 100 million in middle class people that are going to need our fuel
  • High wages
  • Labour Shortages
  • Population growth

Friday, May 15, 2009

I love Obama...and Torontonians and Calgarians should too



Check out this article from the Globe


Mr. Obama now proposes to levy a $210-billion tax increase (over 10 years) on U.S. corporations that operate through foreign subsidiaries – making them, by and large, the (nominally) highest-taxed corporate entities in the world. This will be negative for the United States, potentially terrific for Canada.

Beginning soon, major U.S. corporations can be expected to move head offices to Toronto and Calgary to take advantage of the lowest corporate tax rates (by 2012) in the G7. In the end, Mr. Obama will have ensured neither revenue nor jobs.


OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Will Tony Wong crash the real estate market in Toronto?


As argued by ROBERT SHILLER and GEORGE AKERLOF in Animal Spirts, articles like the Tony Wong's article in the Toronto Star (see below post) have a huge impact on the on the economy. Human interest stories with little facts can spread like viruses to infect the masses.


Check out Shiller's article in the Globe



Time for some responsible journalism perhaps?

Big spike in number of homes lost in GTA

Response to Tony Wong's article in thestar

Big spike in number of homes lost in GTA
Tony Wong


umm, ok. According to the Canadian Bankers Association there are 6,608 mortgages that are more than 3 months in arrears in Ontario as of January 2009.There are a total 1,711,488 mortgages Ontario...this is 0.39%. The Big Spike that Mr Wong quotes is actually a 0.08% from last year. Thanks for the "information." To show my appreciation I'll do you a favour, i'm going to promote you and your article on my blog....smile






"I have not seen the level of desperation I am seeing out there now...

Jim Common, a realtor who has a monthly power-of-sale newsletter

Hey Jim, how many people read this article and have now signed up for your newsletter? It's your job to market power of sale properties and you are doing it well it appears. I just wish you would do it with hard evidence.

To show my admiration for your "information," I'll do you a favour, i'm going to promote you and your newsletter on my blog. Click here for Jim's super power power of sale newsletter.

there were 472 such listings in the Toronto area on the Multiple Listing Service in March, up 44 per cent from March of last year

I'm sorry you did quote a number...a number that hasn't been corroborated by any other non-biased industry group like StatCan, Canadian Banker's association or CMHC.
This number, a 44% increase may sound high it actually is equal to 145 more homes being listed as a power of sale according to Jim. TREB currently has 20,533 properties currently listed.

Ok I read on..the article is full of conjecture and anecdotal evidence.

This why I love doing research to find opportunities while other people get scared. One of my favourite saying, by best selling Real Estate Author Don Campbell, is always Look at "WHAT'S BEHIND THE CURTAIN"...do your own due dilligence and research for yourself. Don't take any article like this at face value.


According to the Canadian Bankers Association, mortgages in arrears (in default for three or more months) were up to 14,676 in February of this year from 10,376 a year earlier. The number is still small, representing just 0.38 per cent of all outstanding mortgages in Canada, but it is up from 0.27 per cent in 2008, a number that had remained relatively flat until it started creeping up in November of last year.

Some facts...AweSOME..i'll graph it for you..see historically, its not that different today as it was years ago.

What was the point of Tony's article again?






Wednesday, May 13, 2009

More Responses to Globe article

More responses to comments to an article in theglobeandmail

Home prices new and resale will continue to fall in prices until the average wage can afford the average home price which is in some cases 50% and more of a price drop. The housing crash is here and many people are defaulting on their mortgagae in great numbers. Don`t believe the liar RE agents who are starving for sales.

As for defaults, the Canadian Bankers association, the number of mortgages in arrears (i.e more than 3 months behind on their payments) is still at historical normal levels.





I thought switching from renting. Considering latest development on the GTA market I'm not doing it anytime soon.

Anybody with a piece of paper, a pen and 5 minutes of spare time can figure out that buying now is a financial suicide. Unfortunately false affordability numbers caused by artificially low interest rates lure people without pens and paper into lifelong mortgage servitude.


You might want to re-consider this. Mortgage rates are at historic lows, if you have an open mortgage you can pay more principle than interest than you ever could and again…the affordability is at what it is historically.

In addition, as a investment real estate has blown apart other investments if done correctly...simply because of leverage.




DON'T BUY NOW! WAIT TILL THEY DROP BELOW 200 GRAND!

Every measurable fundamental (inflation, average income etc) has pushed real estate well above $200,000. Land prices, construction costs have pegged the cost to build an average condo semi-detached home in Edmonton to be well over $200,000. I'm not sure what the base of this statement is.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

No Growth Expected for any province - Scotia Bank


Curious article from Scotia Economics in their provincial outlook I'm really surprised at the short-slightness in their article. Especially in light of my previous post.

Investment in non-conventional oil production has virtually disappeared and weak energy prices will reduce conventional oil and gas production as well as drilling.

and

The precipitous decline in oil prices from their mid-2008 peak, coupled with still-high costs and tighter credit availability, have led to the postponement or cancellation of over $40 billion worth of capital projects, including new oil sands upgraders.

According the latest report from the Government of Alberta there is $234,001,200,000 in projects planned, $86 billion of this amount is on hold.


They believe that this huge slow down of only having $148 Billion in projects will cause the economy to shrink by 2.3%. Hmmm....That works out to be $41,000 in spending per person.

According the Conference Board of Canada (who don't care if you buy real estate), they expect to see a 0.5% drop in Alberta output. This seems to be more realistic


According to AIC, There is $25,000,000,000,000,000 (i just wanted to see how $25 trillion looked like) in worldwide stimulus that is being spent world wide, plus the hundreds of million new middle class people in China and India will require FOOD FUEL AND FERTILIZER


What kind of impact do you think this will have on our economy?

According to Urbanation: There were 917 condominum apartment sales in the Toronto CMA in Q1-2009, a 73% decline from Q1-2008 and Q1-2007.

This is not a picture of the fly condo line.


I went to the fly condo pre-launch....whoa momma was it a frenzy. People were fighting
over the finger sandwiches....and condo units too. I was such a buzz kill, lecturing people about investing with fundamentals.


According to Scotia Economics, here are 7 reasons why they believe we won't have an 80's style condo-correction

  1. The number of apartment units under construction has fallen now for four consecutive months, having peaked last October.
  2. Residential construction intentions are down sharply. Municipalities issued permits for just over 10,000 multi-unit dwellings in the first two months of 2009, roughly half the rate of a year ago. For the first time in over a decade, apartment completions are exceeding
    apartment starts.
  3. We expect to see an increasing number of pre-construction project cancellations.
  4. While the level of recently completed but unsold multi-unit dwellings is high, it remains well below prior cycle peaks (developers require more pre-sales before they get financing).
  5. apartment rental vacancy rates are low, suggesting a greater ability to absorb vacant condo units. Tight rental markets make condo ownership more attractive to renters, and rental condominiums more attractive to investors. Roughly 20% of condo units
    are rented.
  6. Several major developers, including in both Toronto and Vancouver, reported sharply higher sales volumes in March. Houses are more affordable (lower interest rate and federal incentives for first time buyers)
  7. Condo's are preferred choice of housing demographically (empty nester's downsizing and younger folks out of school buying their first property that they could afford)

Good news for people who own an existing condo - your property values won't fall that much....bad news for people lining up hoping to flip their condo's at a higher price (it's not going to double before construction is complete folks)

Monday, May 11, 2009

New home prices edge lower - Western cities post largest drops, Statscan says

My Response to the comments on the latest globeandmail article

Why is western Canada taking a bigger housing hit when Ontario has lost more jobs.


Taking a look at prices at a historical level we have seen the market appreciate at incredible levels since 2005. It’s hard to put in context that the Tiger Wood’s like years we have been having is not the norm. The home prices shot up too quickly because of the frenzy of buying since 2006. We are seeing a normal correction in a long term up cycle.







We need to get back to late 70's house prices for it to match peoples ACTUAL paychecks these days. Till then oh well, the price crash has just started.


Affordability of a home is a key measure of the health of the market. According to the RBC affordability index, which measures the average pre-tax income that goes towards housing, Edmonton is currently under 40%. This is at the historical norm. It should be taken into account that the affordability now is even better than it was over the past 20 years with the introduction of the 35 amortization mortgages.




Thursday, May 7, 2009

Ways To Fund Your Real Estate Investments

Today, I would like to briefly touch on a important subject matter when it comes to real estate investments – funding your down payment/closing costs. Many people think that real estate is a high stakes game that requires huge sums of money and is an investment vehicle that only rich people can participate in.

Many look at their chequing or savings account and come to the conclusion that they do not have the cash required to even make a down payment on an investment property. Well today, I would like to present you with a well known source of capital that real estate investors understand, use and most people have access to. This source of capital is called a Personal Line of credit or a Line of Credit (LOC).

A Personal Line of Credit is basically a revolving loan that you can secure from the bank. There are two type of Personal Line of Credits available. One is a Secured Line of Credit which means that any loan that is advanced to you is secured against an asset such as your principal residence. The other is a Non-Secured Line of Credit. The Non-Secured Line of Credit as the name suggests is not secured against any asset, you just have to qualify for the loan, but carries a higher interest rate.

Both Secured and Unsecured Line of Credits come with benefits and may allow you to fund real estate investment costs such as down payments, closing costs, inspection costs, appraisals, renovations and so on.

Benefits:

1. Relatively low interest rates compared to other source of credit such as credit cards. Interest rates are calculated by taking the current prime lending rate of that specific lending institution and adding their premium to that rate. Over the past 5 years, the interest rate on LOC loans have been between 7%-10% - much lower than credit cards. The rate that you ultimately get depends on your financial standing, credit score, current prime rate and the lending environment.

2. Interest Only Payments. Some banks/financial institutions will allow interest only payments which ultimately means that less money is required to service the debt.

For example, some banks only require that you pay 3% of the principal amount each month. So if you establish a $10,000 line of credit and you use it all for a major purchase, your monthly interest cost can be low as $30.

3. No Application Costs. There are no up-front fees or costs with applying for a Personal Line of Credit.

4. Revolving Credit Facility. LOC are revolving credit facilities which means that you can establish a line of credit and you will only be charged interest if you borrow from it.

• Once you open your Line of Credit, you have access to the full credit limit and you don't have to reapply
• As you pay off any credit that you have used, it becomes available again
• For example, if you have a credit limit of $10,000, you might use $2,000 for closing costs or renovation and have $8,000 for other purposes. As you pay off the $2,000, that credit becomes available again.

5. Tax Write Off Benefits. This is one of my favourite benefits. If you use your line of credit dollars towards an investment such as an investment property, you can write off all the expenses related to the loan. This means that you can now write off the interest as a investment/business expense!

Have Equity in Your Home? Get a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC).

Equity simply means that the fair market value of your home is higher than your current mortgage balance. The difference between the market value of your property and your mortgage balance is your equity amount. Now depending your finances and credit rating, banks may allow you to draw on that equity amount through something called a Home Line of Credit (HELOC).

What is a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC)?

A Home Equity Line of Credit is simply a revolving Line of Credit that allows you to use the equity in your home to borrow money. With the Home Equity Line of Credit, you can have access to up to 80% of the appraised value or purchase price of your home (whichever is lower), less any prior outstanding mortgage charges. As your mortgage balance decreases, your available credit increases.

The terms on a HELOC vary from bank to bank and of course your personal financial situation. I recommend that you consult with your mortgage broker or personal mortgage professional/banker on how a HELOC affects your finances and if it really meets your goals.

In closing, there are different ways to raise the money required to fund your real estate investments and Personal Line of Credit and HELOC are just a couple of ways.

Ajayan Sritharan
Real Experts Inc
www.realexpertsinc.com

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Cash Is King – The Power of Positive Cash Flow

Today, I would like to illustrate the importance of positive cash flow in real estate investing. As I mentioned in previous articles, positive cash flow is a key element in real estate. Positive cash flow is important because it can allow you to make money in any real estate market – even during times when real estate prices are going down. However, please note that positive cash flow is not the only criteria when considering real estate opportunities, however, it is one of the tools used to identify good investment properties.

At Real Experts Inc, we generally purchase positive cash flow properties. At a minimum, we would consider buying properties that breaks even now, but have the potential to generate positive cash flow in the future. Let me illustrate the power of having positive cash flow properties in your investment portfolio and impact it can have on your investment returns.

About one year ago, I purchased a property in a small town in Ontario for $88,900 (a triplex). The price might shock you because it seems very low, but trust me; this is a real deal that I have completed. My total out of pocket cash investment was $11,800 – this includes the 10% down payment and closing costs. The monthly positive cash flow on this property is $400. ($4800/year). Therefore, my total return on my investment is 40.6%/year! If you think that is a great return on anyone’s money, you would be right. Now keep in mind, my return figure does not include any price appreciation or the fact that I was able to purchase this property below market value. But at the end of the day, with great cash flow like this, who’s counting on the real estate market to go up? Now, deals like this are not easy to find and it takes a lot of time and research to spot the right areas, and negotiate a favourable price.

Following a strategy of only buying cash flow positive properties, below current market values, has allowed us to make money even in today’s soft real estate market. In closing, positive cash flow is a very important element in real estate investing and can deliver key benefits such as:

a) Stable returns month after month (if the property is managed right and has no vacancies)

b) Allow you to generate profits even in down markets, thereby allowing you to ride out any short-term downturns such as the one we face now.

c) Reduce risk and generate the cash you need to purchase more real estate in the future.

REAL ESTATE IS A PROFIT MACHINE! - 7 Ways To Profit from Real Estate

As a sophisticated investor, I review every aspect of an investment before jumping in. The top 3 things I study are how the investment will be profitable, the risks involved and possible exit strategies.

Today, I like to focus on how investment in real estate can generate profits. Now most of us already know the 2 main ways real estate generates a profit – increase in property value (appreciation) and positive cash flow. However, did you know that there are 5 additional ways real estate can put money in your pocket? If your answer is “No”, please keep reading and you will be amazed to learn that there are actually 7 ways to make a profit in real estate.

Folks, only after learning that real estate can be profitable this many ways, I was able to come to the decision that real estate was an investment that I should be involved in.

1. The first one is Equity. Equity is basically the current market value of a property minus the mortgage amount owed to the bank. So how do you increase equity and therefore your profit on your real estate? When buying, you can negotiate and secure a lower purchase price (below fair market value) and when selling, you may be able to get top dollar for your property. If you do both things correctly, you can make thousands of dollars in profit. I will discuss ways to accomplish both in another article.

At Real Experts Inc, buying below current fair market value is a cornerstone of our strategy and so we always try to find deals at a discount. All of our properties have been purchased at least 10% below market. In today’s market, if you do your homework, you can find deals like that in many places – just make sure those areas are growing and have good long-term prospects.


2. Leverage is the power of using the bank’s money to fund your real estate purchases. By using the bank’s money to fund the majority of the property’s purchase price, you can now buy more property. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you have a $100,000 in cash to invest and there is a property that you would like to buy, also worth $100,000. Now you have two options:

a) Use all of your money to fund this purchase or

b) Use the bank’s money to fund the majority of this purchase and very little of your own money.

So now let’s look at the impact of both of these strategies:

a) If you use all of your money to buy this $100,000 property, you’ve bought 1 property with no debt but now you have run out of money to invest in other properties!

b) If you go and get a mortgage with the bank, say for 80% of the purchase price ($80,000) and pay the rest yourself 20% ($20,000), you have only spent $20,000 of your cash. This leaves you with another $80,000 to invest in other properties!
One word of caution, if you are borrowing from the bank, make sure that your property generates enough monthly rent/income to cover the mortgage payment as well as all the other costs (property taxes, utilities, insurance, property management fees etc).

3. Appreciation simply refers to the increase in market price of your property. Based on conservative estimates, real estate has appreciated an average of 3-5%/year over the past 25 years. So does that mean you’ve only made 3-5% on your investment? Absolutely not!

Let me illustrate an example. Say you purchased a property worth a $100,000 and made a down payment of $10,000 and financed the rest with a mortgage from the bank. Your actual out of pocket investment is only $10,000. Let’s also assume that the property went up in value by 5%. What’s your return on investment? Well it 50%!
How is this possible? Well, if you take the increase in property value which is $5000 (5 % x 100,000) and divide it by your out of pocket investment $10,000 this equals 50%. This is the power of appreciation and leverage in real estate!

4. Principal Reduction. This is one of the sure fire ways to make money in real estate. Every month you are going to be collecting rent from your tenants. You will use that rent to pay your monthly mortgage bill. As we all know, part of your mortgage payment goes towards the interest on your loan, but the other part goes towards the principal amount that you owe. So this means you have now got someone else paying down your loan and in time your mortgage balance will be zero!

5. Positive Cash Flow. Positive cash flow simply means that your total income on a property is greater than all the expenses related to that property. Positive cash flow is a key fundamental in real estate investing. You only want to purchase property that is positive cash flow. At a minimum, you want to make sure that the property breaks even and that you don’t have negative cash flow.
All of our properties generate positive cash flow and have allowed us to live a better lifestyle and not rely on a company pay cheque all the time. In most cases, positive cash flow coupled with principal reduction of your mortgage is your ticket to generating predictable returns in any real estate market (especially when the market is correcting).

6. Tax Benefits. When you are in real estate you have to treat this as an investment and a business. Therefore, you can now write off all of your expenses associated with owning that investment or operating that business. So for example, you can write off things such as your mortgage interest on your investment property, utilities costs, property management costs and so on. However, on the flip side, you have to declare your rents as rental income. Please make sure that you speak to a professional accountant about what is considered rental income and business expense.

7. Refinance/Equity Re-investment. To illustrate this point, let’s go back to the original example. Consider the following scenario. So let’s say the property that you bought for $100,000 went up 5 % every year. Now 4 years later, the house would be worth about $121,000. Now during that time let’s say your mortgage balance went down to $80,000.

You can borrow against the new value of your property (refinance) usually it can go up to 80% of the property value. So how much cash can you pull out of your current investment and how is that calculated?
You take $121.000 (property value) x 80% and subtract $80,000 (your mortgage balance) this equals about $17,000. This means that a few amazing things have happened:

1. You have cashed in on the increase of your property without having to sell it!
2. You didn’t have to pay a hefty commission to the real estate agent (often 5% of selling price) – you saved $6,050 on commission alone.
3. You get to keep the property where your mortgage is still being paid down by the tenant’s rental payments.
4. If you have a positive cash flow property, you can still profit from that and benefit from any future increase in property price (appreciation)
5. Now you have $17,000 in cash that you can use to buy a similar property and repeat the process. This is how you build your real estate portfolio and multiply your income.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Big News: New rodent problems for Chinatown, Kensington Market


Now a high density of rodents in Chinatown shouldn't be surprising...it also has the highest density of restaurants and grocery stores in the city.

When I see Chinatown-Kensington market area I see great opportunity for some residential development. The area is a classic case of how economic fundamentals, when uncontrolled, can kill a neighborhood.
Being a neighborhood that is very accessible and close to the core, Chinatown-Kensington, has always been a highly concentrated area with business and retail. As a result, many different businesses move into the area and area becomes popular with people looking for a diverse shopping area.
Overtime, because of the super competitive nature of a neighborhood, the winners of economic fundamental dance are only a very narrow segment of particular uses, crowding out other businesses that supplied the diversity in the first place.

This is what happened in Chinatown. In its first incarnation, Chinatown started with one successful laundry business started by Sam Ching in the 1870’s.

Sam Ching, started a trend of thousands of Chinese immigrants starting laundry shops in the area, as more and more migrant Chinese started to move in they saw opportunity to open different kinds of businesses, and they opened restaurants and grocery stores. These businesses started to become really popular and profitable; as a result, more and more would be restaurant and grocery store owners starting to prospect the area and they were willing to pay higher rents to landlords than the other businesses (like the laundry shops).

The other businesses in the area started to get crowded out because they couldn’t afford the rents in the area as the rents were going up.

Fast forward to today, the area becomes super saturated with restaurants and grocery shops, driving away other businesses (i.e. to Markham). What’s ironic it’s the diversity of businesses that would create extra traffic to the area which caused the restaurants and grocery shops to be popular in the first place. Chinatown-Kensington market is now a rat infested fad neighborhood.

Toronto should increase the diversity of the area by making it economic viable for developers to increase the number of residential and office buildings available along Spadina (YES CONDO’s). The AGO and Ontario College of Art and Design are doing a great job creating a different type of anchor to attract people, however, it doesn’t make economic sense for a developer to build a condo or office building on Spadina over Markham…that’s why Markham is getting more jobs and Toronto is getting more rats.

Can Gordon Ramsay make real estate more attractive?


So if Starbucks can make your real estate double (see the Venti Indicator) can Gordan Ramsay do the same for some lucky Toronto neighborhood. The thought of that sweet smelling fresh and local ingredients bringing all those DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) into a transitioning neighborhood like Dundas East (ONE COLE anyone?) may have developers salivating for something else.