We recently hosted a seminar titled “Financial Freedom Through Real Estate” which was focused on the investment opportunities in our great city.
Within a week of the session, Holly, one of our attendees, contacted us, bought a bungalow in the Rideau Heights area, and is on her way to establishing her own real estate empire! Her anticipated return on investment: 167 percent! (Want to find out how? Give us a call and we’ll walk you through it!)
For those who missed the seminar, I want to share a few key points to consider about real estate investing:
- Real estate investing is not like other investing. Some studies will compare real estate and the equity markets and tend to suggest they are similar in their rate of returns, perhaps giving a slight edge to stocks. However, that only applies when you buy a property and leave your money tied up in the property for a year! This calculation does not consider all of the elements that make up your return as a real estate investor: appreciation, principal recapture, and rental income (as applicable). Comparing stocks and homes is apples and oranges.
- There are many ways to finance real estate transactions. A good mortgage broker or realtor can tell you about options like vendor takeback mortgages, refinancing, and private mortgage options. Do many of these options carry higher interest rates? Yes. However, it all comes back to your return on investment–if these options allow you to make purchases you otherwise could not make, and they allow you to make money, they may be a good option.
- You do not have to go it alone and you do not have to become a landlord. Each person brings consideration to a real estate deal. Maybe you bring the cash and someone else is the property manager and takes the calls. Perhaps you hold the mortgage and earn interest for someone else’s investment. At our seminar, I introduced our friend Fern Gauthier of Property Sense who works with real estate investors and partners in Kingston. He’s someone I work with on some of my deals. Think about what you could bring to a deal.
I am now sending out real estate investment opportunities to those seminar attendees, and I’d like to add you to that list! Interested? Send me an email: jordan@reri.ca.