I have 2 houses for sale in Winnipeg and the realtor emailed this morning telling me to give him a call. I though it was going to be good news, he was calling because he had an offer on one of the properties. Unfortunantely that was not the case, some little assholes broke into my duplex and set it on fire. There is fire damage but the place is still standing (which is good), I will find out how bad the damage is when the property manager calls back. Sometimes you think you are doing the smart move buying real estate for a cheap price that will cash flow itself. Even when you do your research you come out with problems, so you need to have a game plan.

What Is My Game Plan?

I called the insurance company, and I am covered so either I fix and sell the duplex or sell the property as is for a cheaper price. I’m going to wait and see. If I was making a regular wage this would have fucked me up, but since I’m making lots of money with affiliate marketing this doesn’t affect me financially. Sometimes take a financial hit when selling properties is the best way to get out of a bad situation. No one likes to loose money, but you live and learn. As long as you learn from your mistakes, then you can use the information from this situation to the next deal.

No one expects to have a fire, especially when it was deliberately set, but you can’t control everything. I don’t seem to have these problems in he homes I manage here in Vancouver. Here is one tip don’t invest in high crime neighbourhoods, yeah it sounds simple. I guess the cheap price of real estate in Winnipeg was too hard to pass up. I bought the duplex for $52,000 and it was being rented for $800 plus utilities, awesome cash flow. Yeah it WAS great cash flow, then this happens. This isn’t the first time this place was broken into. In December someone broke it and stole all the copper piping, which I replaced with PVC piping. At least they can’t steal the copper now right? Oh well I’m still doing extremely well with affiliate marketing . This problem will blow over and will be a distant memory. I plan on buying condos in Vancouver soon, so I can manage them myself. I think managing them myself is the best way to go.

I would rather have a property management company handle things but they just seem to fuck things up. Either it’s crazy repair bills, fires, vacancies and so on. Enough is enough, I’m not buying real estate to make the property management company rich on repairs.