613-618-4082

February 2018 Real Estate Ezine
February, 2018
News From Michael Arthur

After the Christmas holidays, January was a busy month for me as my current and new buyer clients were really eager and ambitious in looking for affordable homes available for sale in the market. As such, myself and my clients went on plenty of home showings. Unfortunately, during these showings, the homes that we saw were either poor quality, expensive, or bought immediately after they were listed in the market for a few days. This is the reality of the Ottawa housing market where there is a limited supply of homes for sale coupled with increased buyer demand resulting in higher home prices. In fact, there are reasons why these trends are happening as I wrote about it in my 2017 year-in-review of the Ottawa market in my blog, which also includes the 2018 outlook of the market along with revealing the best places to invest in the Ottawa.

You can learn more about this review in this video: https://youtu.be/PMyre_xlRbs

As you already know, I am not thrilled about the winter season, especially those unpredictable, wind chill temperatures. However, things will be heating up in Ottawa with Winterlude starting this week, from February 2 – 19. Here is the website on events taking place at Winterlude:

https://www.ottawatourism.ca/ottawa-insider/winterlude

Happy reading!☺

Best regards, 

Michael B. Arthur
 
Quote of the Month 
“If you’re not going to put your money in real estate, where else?” 
– Tamir Sapir
 
A Laugh or Two For Good Measure!
Q: What do politicians and diapers have in common? 
–
A: Both should be changed regularly, and both for the same reason.
*****************************

Doctor says to his patient: 
“You have Cancer and Alzheimer.”
–
Patient: “At least I don’t have Cancer.”
 
Helpful Life Hacks & Cartoon of The Month
                
 

Leverage
    One of the reasons I like real estate as an investment (as opposed to mutual funds, stocks, bonds, GIC’s, etc.) is because we can take advantage of LEVERAGE.  Let me give you an example.  Let’s say you wanted to buy $500,000 worth of gold.  How much would that cost you?  If you said $500K, you’re absolutely right! 

   Now let’s say we want to buy a $500,000 duplex – how much will that cost us?  $500K?   Nope. 
   We can buy that property with just a 20% downpayment ($100K) and the bank will finance the other 80% ($400K).  We use a little bit of money in order to own a LOT of real estate. 

   Now here’s where it gets really exciting… Let’s say the property increases in value by 4%.  That would be a $20,000 increase in value.   $20K on a $500K investment is pretty good… However, because we LEVERAGED our money, we are actually making a $20,000 return on our $100,000 downpayment.  That’s a 20% return on our cash invested! 

   That’s the POWER of LEVERAGE, and that’s one of the BIG benefits of investing in real estate vs. most other options out there.
 
About Michael Arthur:
 

Who are we? Creative Real Estate Ventures is a real estate investment company. We have been actively involved in Ottawa area real estate investing for a number of years. Our mission is to provide quality housing for quality tenants, while at the same time providing an above average return on investment (R.O.I) for our investor partners and ourselves. It is truly a win-win-win way of investing!

And if you are ready to find out more about our investment program, I invite you to contact me directly, and I will be happy to show you exactly how it works, either in person, by phone, or on-line.

You can email me at:
michael@michaelbarthur.com
or give me a call at 1-613-618-4082