Last time, (a year back) I started looking for a residential investment property, the market started going down. I thought I could be taking a huge risk as real estate across North America was struggling.

Today, the price in Mississauga started going up, semis are selling close to 400K compared $330 2 years back.

I haven't decided whether high risk / low maintenance commercial property or low risk / high maintenance residential property. I have a feeling that the returns on residential may be high..

I got to check whether having a decent equity behind me would enable the banks to give me good rate / loan with a small down payment.


Did you enquire about any commercial properties around ?

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The cowards never started,
The weak died on the way,
Only the strong arrived.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yK1i9cLAMM

I feel otherwise JRF that returns on a commercial property might be much better subject to occupancy ... The catch as I know is / might be is a higher % of down payment and perhaps a higher mortgage rate as well ...

No I haven't seen any but plan to ... also plan to meet with a Bank Rep in this regard .... Will keep this thread updated ...

I have heard quite a few horror stories abt residential rental esp if you aren't living which are not so in commercial as its more legalized but the flip side is ... risk of un occupancy .

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Fido.

The risk I mentioned is on the occupancy factor. It is much easier get a house occupied than a business.
As you said, there are various others risks in renting a residential property. It could even drive you crazy and could demand lot of your time. I and my wife being full time employees, we're not looking for any property that will demand more of our time. Financial risk could be tolerated to some extent but not the time part.

I need to weight various things before making a decision.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Fido

I feel otherwise JRF that returns on a commercial property might be much better subject to occupancy ... The catch as I know is / might be is a higher % of down payment and perhaps a higher mortgage rate as well ...

No I haven't seen any but plan to ... also plan to meet with a Bank Rep in this regard .... Will keep this thread updated ...

I have heard quite a few horror stories abt residential rental esp if you aren't living which are not so in commercial as its more legalized but the flip side is ... risk of un occupancy .

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The cowards never started,
The weak died on the way,
Only the strong arrived.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yK1i9cLAMM

My 2cents,
I have seen risk on the both sides.
One of my friend has purchased a commercial property. I have seen both the issues of un occupency as well as vaccating the renters on repeated failure of rent.
Going thru the court and spending so much time and dealing with lawers and etc.
Same thing happend to one of the resedential property of my frined. He leased his house to one tenenant with the all the legal documents filled and went back to india.
after a while he noticed few cheques bounced and came back to find out the details and realized they were not ready to leave and got the court order for another 6 months of their stay.
May these are few incidents, but unless you are ready to face these type of challenges i would not recommend to go for these business investements being full time employees.
In india its easy to vaccate people by hook or crook, but here the law favours the tenants if they are ready for spoiling the credit history or renters history.
all the best

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MK