Clayton Heights/Cloverdale Income Property
 

Hey guys

I am currently looking at making my fist home purchase sometime this year.
I am looking in the Clayton Heights/Cloverdale area.

I currently live and work in Alberta, but would like to buy my property in the GVA as I eventually would like to return to the GVA and live there. In the mean time I would like to generate positive cash flow with an income property in the GVA.

Ive been looking at houses in the $550-650K price range that features a 2 bedroom basement suite as well as a legal coach home above the garage.
My plan is to initially rent out all 3 suites (main house, basement and coach home), and then eventually move back to BC and live in the coach home while I rent out the house/basement. (Until the need arises in which I need a bigger space to live).

I just have some questions in regards to the area, I've been a Richmond boy all my life, and really don't know much about the Clayton Heights/Cloverdale area, it was suggested to me by some friends as they told me that the type of home I am looking for is more common in that area.

I would like to know if there is another area in the GVA that I should be looking at where I can find similar style of homes in the similar price range.

Also, how is the rental market in the Cloverdale area? With the proximity to TWU and Kwantlen, I am hoping to rent the coach home to a University Student, while renting the basement suite to a young couple and the main floor to a young family.

I am planning to put ~100K as downpayment on the home which is just a little less than 20% (I may try to come up with a bit more to make 20% to avoid mortgage insurance if I can)

Currently, if the home was to sit vacant with all 3 suites unrented, I would only be able to put $2000/month towards my mortgage after my expenses (food, rent etc) in Alberta, so I don't think I can afford to have all 3 suite sit empty for long without dipping into the LOC, hence why I want to inquire about the rental market.

Any feedback, suggestion/help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Clayton Heights is saturated with rental properties. Virtually every free standing home has at least one basement suite (some have two), and most buyers opted for a coach house as well. I do have friends that rent in the area -- some in the coach house, one in a basement, and a couple in the main house -- and they did say they didn't have much of an issue finding a place to rent. Whether that simply means they made a good first impression or there are just so many places to rent that owners take anyone they can get, I don't know. However, as someone who would try to visit occasionally, parking is a fucking nightmare.

Going on Kijiji or CL and just doing a word search for Clayton Heights will yield a lot of hits for people trying to rent their suites. There will always be a demand for rental properties, but the fierce competition has made most owners lower their asking price for rent and, as such, it tends to attract those sort of people who are looking for cheap places to rent. Not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but it just means you'll have to do your screening a bit tougher than you normally would if you opted to rent out property in Brookswod.

Thank you for the insight, I did notice the same when I checked on craigslist.
Is there another neighbourhood that you reccomend that I look at where it would fall into the same price range? $550-650K, where perhaps the rental market would be a bit better?

Where abouts is Brokswod?

If you've saved up 100k, why would you ever put money down on a home? Why not just save even more money and buy a house straight up with no mortgage.

Why would you push all you savings into 1 investment. Am I crazy for thinking you can keep saving money and buy a house later, I know there is social pressure to purchase a place but not alot of people have $100k saved up.

Brookswood
http://goo.gl/maps/WxQe5

Yes, he should save up another 400-500k to buy a house, outright. Oh wait, by the time that happens, the same place is probably going to cost 800k. In the meantime, he could be getting his renters to pay most of the mortgage and have a place of his own.

It's not about whether he should buy a house anyways - he's already decided - it's a question of where.

Yea the main point is I want to put the money towards an income generating property.

a 3-living quarter unit is ideal, as the break even/cash flow possibility is quite high, which means I essentially can have my renters pay off the mortgage while living and working in Alberta.

When I decide to move back to BC, I have the option of living in 1 of the 3 living quarters, or leave the property as an investment home and buy a condo later on thats closer to where I will be working.

So ultimately I am just trying to decide the most favorable location for rental income, land appreciation potential is also a factor to consider for me as well.

I was also searching for a house with a rental suite early this year and it came down to two cities for me. Coquitlam (around ikea, close to newwest and burnaby) or north delta ( close to richmond, burnaby, newwest, and surrey). I personally went with a North Delta property, just because I travel to richmond often and my U.S grocery runs.

ewww clayton. full of low class low rent people. parking is a fucking nightmare there like lomac posted and theres fucking kids running around everywhere. look into other areas of surrey too. sullivan area has lots of coach homes.

LOL, really? If by low class you mean middle class I guess I'd have to agree with you. Yes there is a ton of kids, the area is nothing but young families, if you're raising a family that's a good thing if you're single or don't want/like kids probably not for you.

I've lived here for 6 and a half years and I can honestly say it's been nothing but good for us. My son just switched schools last month to his new school a block and a half from my house, it finally finished so now his daycare and school are less then a 5 minute walk which is awesome. All the homes are new, all the infrastructure is new nothing is run down. It might be a different story 20 years from now but right now it's a great place to live for my family and myself. I feel safe having my kid play in the front or road hockey in the back, he has friends from his class that live on our block so they are always playing between houses which is awesome for them.

The one downside as mentioned would be parking, it's not an issue if you can fit all your vehicles in your driveway and garage but when you have people over at times it can be a challenge. The renters aren't so much as a concern to me as parking I do agree there are quite a few but most people own and live in their homes. There is only myself my wife and my son, we have a 5 bedroom house and choose not to have renters that's our choice and we're able to do it.

As far as buying an income property? Well I can't help you there, I really don't know if it's the best spot or not for an investment.

The Roxton subdivision on Burke Mountain in Coquitlam features the house, basement suite, coach house layout.

They're built by Mosaic, and they do produce very good quality work compared to other developers.

The area is very nice and all brand new.

If your actually serious about looking for a home or investment, asking here for opinions doesn't make much sense. No offence but this is a car forum. If you want real advice talk to a realtor. When I sold my home in clayton I used Tony.Z This guy dominates sales in the area and specializes in that area. I have no relation, so just and honest referral
If not him atleast stick with a remax agent they have the most listings 2 to1 over other real estate companies. Providing Real Estate Services in Cloverdale

You're clearly very new here.

You can receive excellent advice on numerous subjects on Revscene due to the diverse and mature user base.

This may be a new account, but I'm far from new. But honestly you're really stretching it there, diverse ,yes, mature user base, well.... Although I get your point, I shouldn't group everyone in the same pile, that is unfair. But unfortunately id take the opinions on certain subjects (including mine) very lightly. Talk to a professional.

Am I stretching? I suppose. But, I see a significant number of mature users amongst the many immature users. More importantly, the opinions of said mature users are largely unbiased. In general, the opinions of professionals are also largely unbiased. Agents are blatantly biased towards being bull on the market and their area, though. That's perfectly fine when a person is selling a property because they have a shared interest, but that's not the case when a person is considering buying in an area and attempting to evaluate its merits.

Anyway, I've veered off-topic so I won't go any further with this.

Check out Willoughby just south of Walnut Grove where I live, drove around the neighborhood and I can tell you that area is booming with housing.

I completely agree with this.
I want to determine the best area to look for an investment property before approaching an agent that specializes in that area.
If I were to ask an agent who works in the cloverdale/surrey market if I should buy in his area or say coquitlam, of course he is likely going to be biased towards the area that he is familiar with.

Can also agree with this, looking at people's join dates, the once immature/street racer wanna be kids have now all grown up to be successful mature adults.

Hell I went to revscene for some career advice, and I think I got some of my best advice from members here.

These are single detached homes?
I do not want to deal with a strata or strata fees.

Would you say coquitlam is a better rental market vs. surrey?

I have to correct myself, the single detached homes with laneway homes are Morningstar's Somerton project and they're on Roxton ave. Mosaic's Roxton project is duplexes across the street, though they also have single detached homes with laneway homes on Burke Mountain. The amount of development in the area is truly massive so there's likely other single detached homes with laneway homes built or being built that I don't know of off-hand. The area overall is a mixture of townhouses, duplexes, and single detached.

I'm not a landlord or looking to rent in either area but anecdotally, the friends I have in Clayton Heights have suggested the neighboring tenants are sometimes terrible. I would think the nicer area and fewer rental properties on Burke Mountain would attract better tenants.

Another area to look at is Grandview Heights in South Surrey (adjacent to Morgan Creek). Nice area with tons of development and likely some laneway homes.

Willoughby is booming with development but I haven't seen any laneway houses, though there may be some.

Anybody on here know of a real estate agent that specializes in income properties in the GVA rather than just a general real estate agent that specializes in one area.
almost like a vancouver Scott McGillivray