Edmonton Real Estate Investor: January 2007

Finding the best home insurance for your new property can be boggling. We especially had a hard time as absentee landlords but with a lot of looking around and finally building a relationship with an excellent provider we were able to reduce the hassle and worries of insuring our properties.

Recently Kanetix, an insurance company, put out this article/ad on msn.ca. It is very helpful for deciding what kind of insurance you need for your new property. I am in no way promoting Kanetix but found the artical straight to the point and informative

Kanetix on MSN

Now if you want a little more detail and perhaps want to learn about different kinds of insurance then check out Insurance-Canada.ca they are the be all and end all of insurance. There are helpful tips and a lot of resources.

Recently the Edmonton Real Estate Board released it's market forecast for 2007. EREB president, Carolyn Pratt, predicted in the annual forecast seminar that housing prices will rise 15% in 2007.

"There is enough strength in the Alberta and Edmonton economy to forecast an increase,” said Carolyn Pratt, president of the EREB. “But to predict the percentage increase is difficult.” Pratt said that despite 52% price increases in 2006, Edmonton housing prices are still below Canadian and Alberta average prices. “There is capacity to increase prices in this market especially if we compare Edmonton prices to Vancouver or Toronto."

This break in rising housing prices is an excellent chance to pick up more properties. Even though house values rose 52% last year our due diligence shows that Edmonton make sense to buy in for a long time to come. The numbers work! There IS negative cashflow and that is okay because the capital gains on the investment far covers the paper loss.

The Edmonton market is long term and the prices will continue to rise for the next few years. A pause in the market is what investors need to get more product. It is also a great chance for new investors to put their money into Canada's #1 city to invest in.

I came across this informative website about the Alberta Oil Sands - Rigzone There are some excellent graphs and charts focused on the Alberta Oilsands. If you aren't exactly sure what oilsands are this site will certainly clear some things up. The magnitude of the oilsands are incredible and the effect it will and has had on Alberta's economy dynamic. The ripple effect on Real Estate was apparent last year with a 52% increase in property prices across Alberta. Of course Alberta is not only "oil" IT, nanotechnology and other industries are all bringing Alberta's economy to the perfect conditions it now enjoys.

Today in my car I was listening to the December REIN CD. My husband and I are Gold members of the REIN group and credit it for our excellent and easy investment system and a network of peers that have bought over $1 Billion dollars of Canadian Real Estate to date.

Don R. Campbell was saying that less than 10% of renters use newspaper ads as a primary source of rental units available in the Edmonton area. Many of the new tenants in Edmonton have inmigrated from across Canada therefore do not have access to local papers. They largely rely on internet rental sites.

So if you have a rental suite that doesn`t seem to be pulling the response that it should in this near 0% vacancy market, then you need to advertise online. It is cheaper and you can customize your ad to put as many photos and details as you like. I personally like www.rentboard.ca Once you post your ad and put up photos they give you 30 days free credit to your account. In this market that can last you a long time!

Welcome to a fabulous 2007!

As you read this blog we have just come back from the winter highland of Northern Japan. For the last few days we have been holed up in a luxurious log cabin with two great friends, enjoying food, relaxing and taking “Onsen” - Japanese Hot Spring Baths in the Nasu Highland region of our prefecture.

With a bit of luck this past year has been fantastic for you. It certainly rates as one of my top ten. We have seen incredible
increases in Alberta Real Estate, our partners made outstanding returns on their investments and we helped people from 5 different countries meet their investing dreams. Speaking of dreams don’t let any dream stealers rob you with their negativity. Make 2007 the year where you do IT! Whatever it may be….

It is never too late to invest in Alberta. But, don’t take my word for it: take a look at this Labour Force Required Graph on our website http://www.glennsimoninc.com/edmontonfacts3.html under “It Has Only Just Begun” You can see for yourself that the Alberta Dynamo Economy is just starting and has a long future ahead. The amount of projects underway and new labour coming to Alberta is staggering. They all need homes to live in and apartments to rent as well.

Have a wonderful January.