Birdie

Hey Doug. I was reading this and I thought of a couple ideas. Have you considered that the Seller may have his mail forwarded to his new address? A lot of people when they move do that so all you would have to do is mail it to the property. Also I would perhaps go look in the house's mailbox at say around 4:00 in the afternoon. If the mail is not forwarded, then the mailman will have left something there. Get the owners name from that. Another idea is an old telephone book (if it has a reverse directory) you can match the address to the name. Another idea is to pull the title for the property. The sellers name should be on that, and then you can check the phone book or do a Canada 411 search

The way to avoid this kind of stuff is when you are turning over the property to you tenant in the first place, let them know ahead of time that they should have with them the following things when the come to get the keys to the property. 1. Post dated cheques for the length of the term 2. A hook up receipt from all utilities starting their service 3. They also must fill out a condition of property worksheet (move in/move out) right then and there before they move their stuff in. I have actually not given people keys in the past and told them to come back tomorrow when they did not have everything I require. When you do this, you will avoid problems. When you don’t do this, you will have problems eventually I promise you. I do this with all my tenants, and I have done it on the 2 sales via lease purchase I have done so far. I have NEVER had to pay somebody else's Utility bill.

Gordon, I was looking at Ft. Mcmurray on Canada's map. It is way up north east of even Edmonton which on the map seems like the only big city close to you. And even that might be an 4 hours drive from Ft. McMurray. I am just making guesses ok, so please correct me if I am wrong. My question is, why are the houses in Fort McMurray so expensive ? It looks like a small town that is really far from anything in Alberta. Is it a big oil &/or gas place etc ? As I have mentioned before, I dont have much knowledge about regions in Alberta but this place looked really far far away from Calgary and far away from Edmonton on the map. So I genuinely wanted to know why the prices up there were so high. - Ardy I can answer that for you Ardy. Fort McMurray is right smack in the middle of the largest oil sand development in the world. There is a huge oil and gas boom going on here. The Oil sands in Canada actually move this country into the top three in terms of proven oil reserves in the entire. Right up there with Saudi Arabia. In the future, you will probably be burning gasoline in your car made from Canadian Oil.

--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Matt B @ Oct 29 2005, 07:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Hi Jean. I'd love to get that same private e-mail showing how Matt Bowman is a huge liar. I'm also very curious why you wouldn't just post the proof you have of claims like this when you're making claims like this, seeing how Matt Bowman might want to sue someone for slander for posting stuff like this. Please send me that e-mail ASAP so I can see what a piece of slime this Matt B character is. (I'm sure you've got my private e-mail address.) Matt Bowman Theaten to sue anyone who talks bad about you eh? The Russ Whitney approach..... nice. Oh well, I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you. As they say Matt, "Hell hath no fury ...............you know the rest I think Here is an idea. Let's talk about Canadian real estate investment on this forum, and you two can have your private love quarrel on MSN instead. Sound like a deal? Seriously, do we really need school yard BS on this site as well?

Let's see I will try and answer your question. I already own the Apartments, and I would not sell them on a lease purchase basis. Loss of control without loss of liability would be the main reason. Yes, you would have to do more volume, but not a lot more. Here in Regina, Apartments are worth about $40,000 per unit. Average house prices here are about 100K. I am sure the ratios are similar in your neck of the woods. Apartment dwellers are VERY labour intensive tenants. They own no tools, and very seldom will just take care of something themselves, they fight amongst each other, they move much more often, they play their stereos late at night, they generally are just less self reliant people overall, blah blah blah. You get the picture. I do like multi-unit properties, but they are a lot of work. It is not just collecting cheques I can assure you. Finding a tenant buyer for a lease option is a lot of work/hassle , but it has a definite beginning and a definite end. Owning and renting an apartment complex is an ongoing amount of work that never ends until you sell it. You could hire property managers, but they are very expensive, and they generally do a crappy job as well. Think about it. Does the property management company care if your apartment is vacant? Do they care if they tenant they rent your apartment to is a scumbag who will pay you late all the time and trash your place? My opinion is if you want to own multi-unit dwellings, you will need to do your own management a least for the first few years. Does that answer your question?

First of all, Yes Doug, it is me in the digital flesh Please allow me to Clarify. I have never PURCHASED on a lease option. I have only sold on them. Overall I like the idea. As a Landlord, I can certainly tell you the selling this way is a whole lot less work overall. It takes a little longer to find a qualified tenant buyer, but they also never call you when the toilet is plugged either! I will still own straight rentals, (i.e. the apartment blocks) but I am pretty sure I will not ever do a straight rental with houses again. I like this model of investing way too much!

Hey guys! I Was also posting on REIdepot as well. Hopefully this website will offer up a little more than "BUY MY COURSE"!

I am also Canadian. I own a couple rental houses and a couple apartment blocks here in Regina Saskatchewan. I have done two rent to own deals with buyers and I hope to do many more!