Calgary Rental

500$ / 1 bdr - Calgary -

Spacious, Quiet and close of everything

Know the issues before buying property to rent

Ensure real estate is an appropriate investment

If the nature of your employment has you moving around a fair bit, it may be hard for you to get established on the property ladder.

One option may be to rent a home and buy an investment property.

When considering an investment property, Nadine de Palma, a financial adviser with Edward Jones in Toronto, suggests first to check with the Canada Revenue Agency to see what taxes you would be liable for and what expenses can be set off against rental income.

"When a principal residence is sold, the gain is not taxable," de Palma says. "If this home was not your principal residence for the whole time you owned it, you will have to report the sale on your tax return," as some portion of the capital gain on it would be taxable.

For the purposes of obtaining a mortgage, the lender will take about 50 per cent of rental income into their calculations, but it will also consider your own rent as an expense.

"You would have to put down (a minimum) 15 per cent and CMHC would charge (an insurance) premium," says Paula Roberts, a mortgage broker for Mortgage Intelligence in Unionville.

Alternatively, Roberts says, some lenders will advance 80 per cent (to purchase an investment property without CMHC insurance you must put up a minimum 20 per cent deposit) but five per cent of that will effectively be a line of credit.

"The line of credit behind it makes it a little bit more expensive, but it is not as high as CMHC (premiums)," Roberts says. "Putting 20 per cent down is usually the best, most inexpensive way."

Roberts says a more straightforward route is to buy where you are now, get a regular mortgage (with a minimum five per cent down, you'll still have CMHC insurance premiums, but lower than for an investment purchase) and then rent it out when you move, effectively having the tenant pay your mortgage.

Whether you have ever lived in the place, de Palma says, it is essential to consider all the costs as well as benefits of home ownership: "Interest rates are at historic lows, but what happens if the rates go up?" she asks.

She recommends detaching your emotions and looking at the deal like a business.

De Palma also lists the costs associating with purchasing and closing, allowing for unexpected costs. "I know a couple who purchased a semi-detached house with the intention of renting it out; $30,000 in house repairs later, and it's still uninhabitable."

Then there is the tenant who does not pay the rent, or the one with issues: "One client said, 'It's amazing how emergencies only happen at 2 a.m. and 3 a.m.' If you're the absentee landlord travelling and working, you have to make provisions for that."

For some clients, de Palma says, it may be better to invest their money and max out RRSP contributions in order to build a really healthy deposit for when they are ready for a more settled home-owning lifestyle.

Tree rentals offer greener Christmas

Environment . A cut Christmas tree, no matter how lush and lovely, just wasn't going to be green enough for the members of Grace Lutheran Church in Palo Alto, Calif.

Respecting all of nature's creations, they didn't want to kill a perfectly healthy tree, watch it become brittle-needled after a month inside the sanctuary, then kick the sad sapling to the curb post-holiday like yesterday's trash.

So they leased a living tannenbaum instead.

A robust 11-foot-tall live redwood - pot and all - was delivered to the church recently by Eric Manning, owner of San Jose Christmas Tree Rental. It is to be decorated, enjoyed and then picked up in January, taken back to the place of its nativity in Manning's nursery to grow and thrive and be ready for next year's holidays and beyond.

Rental trees are not new in the U.S. Northwest and B.C., but the idea has started taking hold elsewhere in the U.S.

"It's great, what with everyone being into repurposing and reusing," said Manning. "And you don't really have to do anything . . . no needles to clean up. No dead tree to put out to the curb."

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Tree+rentals+offer+greener+Christmas/5835263/story.html#ixzz1h3nEEfA0

Vacancy rate down in October

APARTMENTS . It's getting harder to find a place to rent in the Calgary region.

The fall rental market survey of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. shows the city's apartment vacancy rate decreased to 1.9 per cent in October compared with 3.6 per cent in October 2011.

Increased migration and job gains have boosted demand for rental accommodations, said Richard Cho, CMHC's senior market analyst in Calgary.

Most zones in Calgary saw their apartment vacancy rates decline from last year, Cho said.

Downtown recorded the lowest vacancy rate, at one per cent in October, declining from 2.8 per cent a year earlier.

Vacancies ranged from 1.8 per cent for one-bedroom units to 3.3 per cent for units with three or more bedrooms, said the CMHC.

Rents remained relatively stable, the report found. Bachelor and two-bedroom units reported the strongest year-over-year increases in same-sample rents, both up 1.9 per cent from October 2010, said the CMHC.

Overall, the average two-bed-room rent in Calgary was $1,084 in October compared with $1,069 in October 2010. Downtown had the highest average two-bedroom monthly rent at $1,214, while in October 2010 it was $1,173.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/Vacancy+rate+down+October/5863456/story.html#ixzz1h3n2mhrG