[ad]Pretty funny, local Vancouver real estate Guru Ozzie Jurock is now recommending Winnipeg in his last newsletter. Just as I’m ready to sell, he writes a few paragraphs why it is a good place to invest in Canada.

Here are excerpts from Ozzie Jurock’s email:

192 Homes Under $125,000 and a 1% Rental Vacancy Rate Make It Hard Not To Look At Winnipeg
It has been difficult to make a case for investing in Winnipeg. The Manitoba capital, after all, has the same population now as it did 20 years ago, despite high immigration numbers recently. The weather (Winnipeg is the coldest city in the western hemisphere), the crime rate (tied for worst in the country), and the summer humidity and mosquitoes (terrible) don’t help.

Yet, for those who want to park real estate investment dollars while they wait out the current shakeout in B.C. (we noted last week it may be time to sit on the sidelines in B.C. because of the irrational nature of the current market) and possibly Alberta (too many listings, too much speculation), Winnipeg offers a remarkably stable market with some positive signs.

First of all are the house prices. This week Winnipeg has 193 homes priced under $125,000 on MLS, including scores under $100,000. At the $150,000 level you get newer condominiums and nice family houses. (The average MLS detached house price is $189,000; the average new house price is $300,000.)

Second is the city’s apartment rental vacancy rate. According to CMHC it is 1.2%, while the average rental rate for a two-bedroom apartment shot up by 7.2% last year and is forecast to rise another 5.3% this year, to $800 per month. Provincial tenant legislation caps rental rates increase at 2% per annum for 2008, but there are a number of exceptions, including apartments that rent for more than $1070 per month; approved rehabilitated rental units; and most new apartments. (See www.gov.mb.ca/finance/cca/rtb/ for rental information, listing guidelines and rules and downloadable forms.)

Third is an apparently serious attempt to improve the rundown downtown. In the past couple of years, CentreVenture Development Corp., a civic government arm, has bought up all the derelict old buildings along North Main Street. It is now spending $43 million to fix up the area over the next two years. To pay for it, the City has pledged that all taxes collected in the area will be reinvested in the neighbourhood for 10 years. As well, the downtown now has a new sports arena (though no professional hockey).

Fourth is a spike in immigration – 4,000 last year and 3,500 this year – due to a generous federal/provincial immigration program.

Major Point: No guarantees, but Winnipeg, with a population of 630,000 has rentals that should cash flow easier than anywhere else in Western Canada. Due to restrictive rent controls, virtually no new rentals have been built in years, so there is little competition.

Here is my problem with Winnipeg, I have a shitty property manager and the aboriginals seem to love to burn and break windows on the properties that I own. The properties I bought should be great deals but they’re not! Why, because I keep having all these fucked up problems.

1. Arson fire
2. vandalism (broken windows, kicked in drywall, kicked in doors, broken water meters)
3. tenants skipping on rent
4. hard to get hold of property manager

If…. I lived in Winnipeg things would be different and I would probably have 5 houses there, but I can’t control what happens 1000s of miles away. Relying on other people sucks and property managing is not an exception. All I can do is suck up Winnipeg real estate investing to experience, live and learn and on to the next deal.

I bought in the North End Of Winnipeg, which is an area of high crime now. At one time the North End was an area for new Canadian immigrants. Back in the 1920s, nearly 14,000 Jews called the North End home.

It is Canada’s largest urban concentration of Aboriginals as well as Filipinos and the largest Ukrainian center outside of Ukraine itself.

Now the Winnipeg North End is a shit hole, low income means ghetto and that’s what you have in Winnipeg. It sucks but that’s life and you move on.

I do agree that Winnipeg is a good buy, but I don’t recommend buying in the North End from my experience. I do respect Ozzie Jurock very much and I have a subscription to his “Facts By Email” real estate news service. I am in no way slamming Ozzie, I consider it my own fault for the mistakes that have happened.

C.V.

update January 3, 2010

I want to thank Ozzie Jurock for his  “facts by email” newsletter that I subscribe to every week. Ozzie Jurock is without a doubt the reason I invested in real estate. Thanks to his advice I have over 8 properties. I followed his advice and bought 3 condos (2 in Burnaby and one in Port Coquitlam), under $200,000 last year and in 2008. They cash flow and have increased at least 15-20%  since I bought them r when we had our housing “slump”. And also his advice on investing south of the border has worked out well, I bought a 3 bedroom condo in Las Vegas for $100,000. 1/2 of what it was worth 2 years ago.

Thanks Ozzie!