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Taking money from out of the garbage and putting it into your wallet....


Blog by Patricia Houlihan - Personal Real Estate Corporation | April 19th, 2007


One of my tenants just moved out. She was a great tenant-but I always try to get my tenants to buy not rent....Why do I do this?

I think everyone should buy a place-it doesn't make sense to rent if you can afford to buy.  Given the rents in Vancouver, and given that now my clients can get mortgages with nothing down (or very little depending upon their individual situation) it generally costs about the same to buy as to rent.  I always say that when my tenants pay rent (or when any tenant pays their landlord rent) it is the same as throwing money in the garbage. They throw it in the garbage and never see it again; I take it out of the garbage and put it in my pocket to help me have a better retirement!    :-)

There is a lot of research to back up the gains to be made in real estate-and in my opinion, given the tax advantages, it is a lot easier to make these gains on your principal residence (where you live) than on investment properties.  The University of BC recently released a study which seems to conclude that it is next to impossible to make the same financial gains in any other form of investment as it is in buying your own home and paying a mortgage...even if you assume that you would put all of the money that would otherwise go to a mortgage into savings investments-which almost no one will ever do.

So if you are out there paying rent and putting the money in the garbage, why not look into what you can afford to buy-most clients are surprised to find out!

Give me a call and we can see what you can do!