Best Areas for Different REI Strategies

 

Derek McEwen

Francois: Derek McEwen had a career of over 20 years negotiating terms in the insurance industry. He's lived in Eastern Ontario area since 2011 joining Storm Realty continuing his second career in real estate. And tonight, we're focusing on Cornwall and Alexandria as well as small multifamily land development. So, Derek, I'm really excited to hear about what's going on in these very special markets, smaller towns, smaller cities, but great opportunities. So, take it away.

Derek: Thanks so much Francois and it's nice to see you again. And it's nice to be back everybody. The last few times that I've been here, I've touched on a small multi-family property for the most part. So, I'll just kick it off and just give a little bit of an update on what's going on with them.

Obviously, there's still a lot of interest in those properties over the last month. I've seen that the demand has slowed down a little bit. The demand is still there, but I'm seeing that property stay on the market a wee bit longer. And maybe that shows there's a good opportunity for the patient investor to sit it out.

Maybe look for a good deal for some properties that are getting a little bit stagnant and maybe the seller is panicking a little bit. So, that's good news for us on the buying side. For the most part there's a lot of duplexes in Cornwall. There are some triplexes and some fourplexes.

But tonight, I thought what I would do instead of just rehashing the same thing, I would speak about some bigger properties that have come up. The last time I was here, I was speaking about some land development that was taking place in the Eastern end of the city.

So, the land has been cleared and now it's in full production. Basically, I'm assuming that there's going to be some brand new properties up for sale in the near future. From what I understand, most of those are semi-detached going to go 400,000 a side. But I haven't seen any prices listed yet. But speaking of other land opportunities, and what is that?

If there's anybody that's tuning in tonight, that thinks about developing land for themselves or they know somebody that might be interested in putting a project together. I did notice that there is a property that is available at the Western edge of Cornwall off the main street Brookdale right down near the water.

And this is part of an old tires property. It's not the area where they were actually in production, but this was a subdivided off part of their lot. This is 2.7 acres of land going for 1.2 million. And basically, the listing indicates that it's an excellent location for either a bit of a split commercial and residential.

If I was just to pop it up on the map here of Cornwall like I said, it's the Western edge of the city. So, this is Brookdale Avenue and this is the Causeway down to the United States. It would be this area right here. And like I said, if anybody's looking to develop, it might be a good place for you.

Another property that has recently come up and again it's a bigger property. This is going for almost 1.2 million again, and this is a rowhouse property. And what's interesting about it is that each property can be subdivided off and sold separately.

If anybody is looking to come in, pick up a property and then turn it around, there could be some profit in it for you. It could take a little bit of time to get all the paperwork together and get that done, but still, it's an exciting opportunity to get in there, get a big property and then do what you need to do.

Another interesting property. I saw this the other day. Actually, this is a property on one of the main streets in Cornwall, Pitt Street. It is a nine-unit fire resistive concrete construction property. There's six, two-bedroom units in it. And two, one bedroom properties are absolutely amazing.

And in addition to that, there is one commercial occupancy. It's a floral shop that's been there for about 25 or 30 years. It's a beautiful property. Each of the units that I was able to see were just immaculate. So it's 1.3 million.

I think they could be negotiable on that. One thing to take note is that the tenants here have been there for a while. And I think that there is eventual uplift in this property when they eventually go. It's a prime location and it's close to restaurants, a couple of bars, not far from shopping, there's a bank just down the street.

And the tenants do enjoy that facility. It's not your traditional multi-residential property in Cornwall, but it's really nice. Now at that price, not everybody wants to take a shot at it. The cashflow is about 35,000 after all the expenses. The rental income is 81,700 and the cashflow is about three, five.

Basically, it's not for everybody, but if somebody is looking to park their money and have a nice property with a good future, I think it's pretty interesting.

The Property here is just a small semi-detached, but the reason why I wanted to speak with you about this one tonight, is that the same seller of this property. Has a whole load. Most of them on this street. It's 10th street in Cornwall. So, it is just the semi. The listing price right now is 309, but because there are so many of these properties available, the same seller has a little over 20 semi-detached and then they have a couple of townhouses and a couple other properties.

They'd be willing to package a lot of them together, if anybody is interested and in doing so, then we could get a package deal and bring the price down. I was in this particular one the other day. The layout is quite nice, even though it's a little over 15 years old, but still for that date it's maintained.

It's Leicester. It's a great kind of property. All the ones on that street are very similar. And again, if there's somebody out there that wants to make a very quick score or add a lot of properties onto their portfolio at once, there's the ability to do that. I'm just going to wrap it up a little bit quickly.

When I was talking about land development, there's an exciting project that is going to come to the area. It's not in Cornwall, but it's in Alexandria. And Alexandria is almost in the middle of Ottawa and Montreal. It's on the Eastern edge of Ontario, close to the Quebec Ontario border.

Recently the mayor has announced that there's going to be a big project coming forward. Alexandria is a town of about 10,000 people at the moment. And what has limited its progress in the past is that there's been an issue with the water distribution to have a fair amount of water for that region.

Therefore, it was very difficult to establish the area, but now the mayor has announced that they are in the works of getting the water distribution system corrected and they're going to be open for business. What's great is that this is going to be very accessible to the 417. It's a short distance up to the highway and a quick commute to Ottawa. Again, a very quick commute to the west island of Montreal. There are bus systems that run from Alexandria to Ottawa, for those who want to commute to work from there. And for anybody that is interested in developing there, we do have access to some properties that are off the market.

One that I do know about there's about 30 houses that could be developed in one spot. If anybody is interested, if anybody's in the construction industry or knows anybody that's in the construction industry sometime in the near future, this is going to be an excellent opportunity to get in there into an area that really wants to grow. The mayor of North Glen, Gary is very much on board and developing this whole area. And for anybody that can get in early, it could be an excellent opportunity for you. So for the most part this evening, I've gone a little bit higher than the regular duplexes or triplexes, but I just wanted to give some of you out there and understanding that there's more to the Cornwall area than just the small properties.

If anybody has a bigger appetite, they are available. And also just to put it out there for those of you who invest a lot. And they'd like to go the passive way instead of the active way. A couple of my clients have actually linked money to be passive investors and they've actually coincidentally used the services of our lawyer for the evening tonight, Milena Cardinal. Her office had the ability to facilitate and be like the middle person in between the lenders and borrowers. If anybody out there is looking to possibly lend or have accessibility to some lenders, you might want to reach out to Milena tonight and see if there's any opportunities you can have.

Basically, that wraps it up for me, just a short little update and gives you an idea of what other properties are out there. And if anybody has any questions, feel free to hit me with the chat.