As you know, we strongly believe owning, and carefully buying income producing real estate (without overpaying) beats the volatile stock market. While others panic in the wild market corrections we have seen over the last few months (due to Greece, Chinese stock market correction, Iran, interest rate cuts, ..) , we coolly collect rent month […]
Alberta real estate, oil, NDP and rental properties
With over $70M in assets in Alberta – and a 15+ year stellar track record there – we have been asked this a lot lately: what about oil, the NDP and Alberta real estate ? Will hell freeze over ? Is orange crush a drink, or an economic impact statement ? Will you sell all […]
Tax time: Congratulations to the Top 20% who pay 66%+ of taxes
End of April . Tax time in Canada. Is your share fair ? Did you know that the bottom 40% of Canadian singles pay only 2.5% of all income taxes all singles pay ? Or that the bottom 60% didn’t pay more than 12.1%? Did you know that the top 20% or top quintile of […]
Real Estate Investing: Impact on ROI using different leverage
Real estate investing is like a three course meal (TM). It has three profit centers: cash-flow (or the appetizer), mortgage paydown (the main course) and equity appreciation through asset improvements and inflationary rental upside (the dessert). One key question in real estate investing is: how much cash to put down and how much leverage to […]
Money is on sale: Why interest rates will stay very low for a long LONG time .. and how to use this to your advantage
When you buy and operate income producing real estate, what is the highest expense ? What cost item must we watch the most careful ? Is it property taxes, which we can hardly influence? Or is it utilities which we can influence to a degree through better water and gas efficiencies measures ? Or is […]
15 Reasons how low oil prices will actually benefit the oilsands
Yes, oil is below $50 a barrel. Yes there are layoffs. Yes GDP in Alberta growth will “implode” to 2%, from an unhealthy super-exuberant 4% in 2013. Yes, oil projects are delayed or cancelled. Yes, Alberta may institute a provincial sales tax. Yet, here are actually 10 +5 reasons why lower oil prices benefit the […]
REIN Blog 10,000 – Why are some folks more successful than others ?
As you may know, I blog a lot, primarily on the REIN knowledge sharing website myreinspace. I just added my 10,000th blog post in slightly over 7 years. Wow. 7+ years .. 1400/year on average .. so about 4 a day on average. Quite doable. Some time and lots of desire to share knowledge. I […]
Edmonton’s “Industrial Heartland” thriving through downturn
BY DAVID HOWELL, EDMONTON JOURNAL JANUARY 22, 2015 Billions of dollars in active and pending construction projects in the Industrial Heartland region will help offset the downturn in other parts of Alberta’s energy sector, a business audience heard Thursday. “With shovels in the ground or shovels we expect to be in the ground this year, […]
Mintzing Words with the OSC
The Ontario Security Commission (OSC) is a powerful agency in Canada. Since we as a real estate firm issue securities for our syndicated residential properties we have to follow security laws, specifically NI 45-106 and NI 31-103 . We do not yet follow OSC’s or the proposed national security regulator’s overreaching rules, as we are […]
Ich bin ein Berliner: The Berlin Wall – 25 Years later
Today is a special memorial day for me: The Berlin Wall came down 25 years ago, Nov. 9 1989. Ich bin ein Berliner. I was born in Berlin, not even two years before the Berlin wall went up in August 1961. Both my parents are from East-Germany and foresaw the lack of opportunity in that […]