I’m always divided when this topic comes up.

There seems to be two types of people. Those that believe they can get a nothing down deal (and everything must be a nothing down deal) and those that believe that it only exists in text books or in the US.

For the first group, I’m glad they can “see” that the possibility exists. When they approach me as a mortgage broker, I begin to shudder. Why? They usually assume I can make it a zero down deal. Um. Nope try again. The only way I can get a 100% financing is on an owner occupied deal. Please don’t lie to me either and tell me you will occupy it, when I know you own a 3 bedroom single family in the burbs and you are looking to move to a 2 bedroom apartment downtown. These are not the kinds of deals I’m interested in.

For both groups of people, I’m hear to say that, indeed 100% financing or zero down deals are possible, even in Canada, but you:

a) have to do you homework

b) need to figure out different ways to structure your deals

c) likely need a Join Venture (JV) partner or someone to supply a downpayment (if you want to do this more than once)

People then almost always ask me if I’ve done a no money down deal. Yes and I had to apply a & b above.

The homework side was finding an agent that knew what we were looking for (someone who owned rentals) and fed us deals. Several hundred deals over the course of a couple weeks. We examined about 20 in detail and put in offers on the top 3.

One was already sold, the other missed by a day and the last one took some time and creativity.

So, can it be done? Yes. In Canada? Yes. By anyone? Well, I managed to stumble through it.

Are there 100s of deals out there? Yes, but exceedingly few will be no money down… unless you use the last item. JVs.

This is where we get into the concept of OPM (other peoples money). This is also where your sales skills have to come in. You need to talk with “investors” or “partners” in order to persuade them to lend you their money, at a reasonably high rate of return, in order for you to purchase an investment property. If you have done purchase before, then you can lean on those examples.

The basic concept is you want to buy low (hopefully), either force equity into the property through improvements, additions or slightly more challenging, increasing the rents, in order to increase the value slightly beyond that of the “normal” market appreciation. After say 5 years, you then get an appraisal and refinance in order to pay back you investor the initial capital + his ROI (return on investment).

The “flippers” of the world call this the “slow” way. I call it the solid, long term, retirement investment strategy.

Well folks, enjoyed my vacation last week, which explains why I haven’t updated this blog in two weeks.

The week before vacation was spent trying to close off deals BEFORE I left. Handed off details to a co-worker figuring nothing exciting would happen while I was away. WRONG!

One of my clients called and wanted a zero down deal to close in 3 weeks. I’m oblivious to all this until I get back and start checking all my email. Holly cow! What happened last week?

Well, I’ll be the first to say that sometimes you need a good break from things. The week before I was trying to pull what seemed like everything together and remember all kinds of little things that were important to get done so I could enjoy my time off. I succeeded as many a time I’ll arrive at a destination only to remember something critical the next day. Nothing like a good nights sleep to get the brain in gear to help remember something important.

This week has almost been non-stop. Recover from the week away and the 200+ emails (not including spam) to sift through. I think I’m almost caught up. Files are moving along nicely. Some days I push a rope to get things done and other days I look for a break in the action to track everything that’s happening.

I’m reading various networking blogs/emails/feeds and they all say to stay focused during this time. Plan for the future and try not to push your contacts as they may be heading for vacation themselves.

Great advice, except I’ve never been busier. I guess I’ll have to remember these words of advice, IF things slow down. Others tell me, you don’t know what busy is yet. Perspective is everything.

So here it is mid-summer, hotter than heck out there. Power advisories and thunderstorm warnings. Ah, summer.

In the markets, looks like a slight correction after months of straight increases. Bond yields seem to have stopped rising after the Bank of Canada raised their rate. The dollar has also seemed to leveled off. Everything just seems to have slowed down slightly as folks are taking holidays.

I guess things will heat up again in September. At least the rates aren’t rising already in anticipation. I’ll take this as a good sign. I just saw some stats for housing prices across Canada. Everything is up. That’s a good sign for a healthy market.

Until next week, keep it cool.