Saturday, December 08, 2012

Our latest adventure

I know, I know, I know. I have been lax on my blogging duties. To be honest, with work and my class for my Master's program, my ass has been downright kicked. I have decided to take a break with the classes for next semester, I've been so stressed out, not eating, insomnia, it's all I can do to get through the day some days. So what do I do to add to that mess? I decide to embark on real estate adventures. Perfect timing.....NOT! For those who are not in the loop, we own (the bank actually owns) a couple buildings and we have 7 apartments that we rent out. The purpose of this is to have some kind of retirement plan, once the buildings are paid off, we'll have a steady income. Since neither of us will have much of a pension and I have never done well in the stock market, real estate is our plan. So we live in a fiveplex and we have another triplex. We bought the triplex ten years ago and it has provided a steady cash flow which helps us with our monthly nut. However, the building has appreciated quite a lot, so that the return on our equity is like 3 percent. A little better than the bank, but not great.

So I decided to look at numbers south of the border. Average home prices in Canada are about double what they are in the states. The numbers up here suck. What I am seeing down in New Hampshire are numbers similar to what they were here when we bought the triplex ten years ago. This property was the one that got me so excited about selling the triplex and investing down south. I'm sure that will not be the one that we buy, but when I checked out rents vs. prices of rental property, there are some really good investment opportunities. My goal is to get a 10% return on investment, which, from my observations, seems totally doable. Yay!

So last week, we called up our favorite real estate agent, put the triplex up for sale and in less than a week we had an offer. After countering, counter countering and counter counter countering, we had a deal. If all goes well with the inspection and financing, we'll close in January and I will start probing properties in the states. I have always done well with real estate and am very excited about this new venture. But there is no rush. We have our amazing Asia vacation coming up in March for our 20th anniversary and with a few extra bucks in the bank account, it's gonna be all that much more fun.

So now you are all caught up with me. I know y'all want a little Georgie porn, so here ya go. Mwah!


11 comments:

wcs said...

Very cool. Hope it all works out great.

Blobby said...

Georgie's first Instagram!

Anonymous said...

Sounds great Richard !! Good luck with your new venture.... kiss Georgie for me.... sure is daring.... love his belly !! xo
Nori

Anonymous said...

darling !! xo

anne marie in philly said...

DARLING! your wit is sorely missed in blogland.

joyeux noel et bonne annee to you and serge and georgie!

Birdie said...

Homes in Sarasota right now can be had for less than $200K, which wasn't true when we left 30 years ago. Really wish I had the wherewithal to invest there!

More Georigie pics! And you!

Tony Adams said...

Check out Fort Lauderdale. (With a reputable agent. Which I recommend)

Mark in DE said...

Like you, Spouse & I have little in the way of retirement funds and we enjoy real estate too so that is our 'retirement plan' too. Good luck on your new venture!

Rox said...

Stress is such a wonderful beast, isn't it?

I'd be too paranoid to buy south of the border, I'd want to see my investment up close. Every day. Lol. It's too bad you don't own something here, vacancy is at zero so landlords are essentially raking it in.

Good luck on the sale and I got your card the other day but haven't had 2 seconds to say thank you. So thank you!!

Java said...

That's a pretty cool plan. I saw on Facebork that the sale fell through. :( Good luck.

Elizabeth McClung said...

I hope everything is great - I can only hope the need for 6 bathrooms and a parking lot involves rentals and not heroin (funny in my head, probably less so in print).

Glad someone else has noticed that any 'market collapse' has missed this country - as a 1 bedroom condo across from me could get you a large part of a state or at least half a block in across the water Port Angeles. On the down side, you miss the dozens and dozens of festivals in Montreal, and on the up side, you get to drive your car on weekends, through a city (just not Montreal).

Plus, you don't have the July moving madness anywhere outside Montreal, so renting should be mundane. If you end up with a building of low repute, I can hook you up with my uncle, who lives in China to avoid Canada Revenue while his slum apartments end up weekly on TV whenever drug busts are reported (Sadly, that's all true).