Hello Everyone Investing in Hamilton Real Estate!!
Admittedly, I take my workouts a little too seriously. No different than any serious golfer or hockey player you know and, sometimes, there is a price to pay when you have a type A, competitive personality.
Whip Marks from Skipping, Nothing Naughty
Admittedly, I take my workouts a little too seriously. No different than any serious golfer or hockey player you know and, sometimes, there is a price to pay when you have a type A, competitive personality.
I know many of you can relate in your own sport of choice or business because you wouldn’t be a Hamilton real estate investor unless you were interested in being more than average.
So what I did next won’t surprise you 🙂
I bought a jump rope… for close to $100… as a reward for writing in my Five Minute Journal for five consecutive days. Crazy, right? Just as crazy as you hockey players spending $100 for a one piece stick or $250 for a golf driver, and it’s even not a rope, but literally a bare metal cable 😀
But then I did this! (Ignore the first two false starts :P)
My previous best with another jump rope (cost $80) was around 30 double unders (rope goes around twice per skip). I would always burn out at 30. With my new rope, my first three attempts were 48, 49 (above video) and 53 dubs and in my books, that’s money well spent, some folks at the gym are now asking where I bought my rope.
Five Things Not to Do While Investing in a Reno Project
After winning the Realtor of the Year Award two weeks ago, we were celebrating over some beer and wine with my wonderful REIN member clients and friends. Â After a few drinks, I can be less sensitive in speaking to people…Â Irina (not her real name) came by to congratulate me and hand me her feature sheet for a property she was flipping, listed with an out of town Realtor. There’s nothing wrong with soliciting me for buyers, however Irina made numerous mistakes in her Hamilton real estate investment journey and I’ll share them with you here.
1.  Focus on the opportunity, not the cost: Irina focused on the cost. She wanted a small investment to limit her capital investment so she bought a house for $160,000 that she’s now trying to sell for over $330,000. Cheap houses are cheap for a reason. The main reason this house was so cheap is because it is located on a four lane, way one street and one house away from a three lane one way street, in a not-so-great part of town.
2.  Have the end user in mind when renovating. Our biggest, common renovation is the finish basements, usual to create more living space in a student rental and in the future, basement suites.  In Toronto, digging out basements for $40-60k can make sense for a $1,000,000 home but not so much for a $160,000 home, but that’s what Irina did. She lowered a six foot basement to give her property a competitive advantage and make it unique to the neighbourhood. Did I mention the house failed to sell these past four months?
3. Â Your Realtor can be a wealth of knowledge. Â In Irina’s case, she was told she could rent the house for $2,000 per month plus utilities by her Realtor. Her property manager however thinks best case will be $1,300. How hard is it to surf kijiji for neighbourhood rents and to ask your property manager what the rents are before committing to a deal??? Â Only the most desirable neighbourhoods in Hamilton fetch $2,000 and this was not the right neighbourhood.
4. Â When renovating in Hamilton, think about resale value and rentability. When purchasing a property, have a long-term view. I always ask myself if I’m OK to hold the property 5-10 years or longer because you never know if a flip might turn into a rent and hold. A defensive and offensive strategy would then be to install an in-law suite in the basement since it may be the hottest feature for both rental and resale.
5. Â Don’t get emotional, this is business and Toronto is not Hamilton. I’m often surprised how many investors from Toronto see red, sold brick houses in Hamilton and fall in love with them. Yes, they have character, but they have tons of mechanical flaws that are expensive to remedy before you can even buy home insurance. You know something is wrong when an insurance company won’t take your money. Get back to fundamentals, look at the neighbour’s houses, are they well kept or renovated? Do they have nice cars in the driveways? And, my favourite, do they hang around after the sun has gone down? Â Do you feel safe? Â If no, what do you think potential buyers and tenants are thinking?
What did I do when Irina handed me her feature sheet? I was honest with her. I wouldn’t be able to bring her a buyer as I couldn’t recommend her property and I gave her a gentle tap on the arm with the feature sheet advising her to talk to me next time she buys something. Who wouldn’t want advice from an award winner that best serves investors…? 😉
Thanks for reading and happy Hamilton real estate investing everyone!
Erwin |Â MrHamilton.ca
