Hey spex. Thanks a million for both starting this thread, and even more appreciatively, continuing to respond in it.
Here's my situation:
I am looking at buying vs. renting a condo in the current Toronto market. Basically just something small for myself, a 1bdrm in one of the large complexes by the lake / financial sector for ~$300k seems to be ideal locationwise.
My situation is that I spent the last year "flipping" a home in Toronto that turned into a rental property as the market turned grim and selling made little sense. (
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/62...-house-443916/ - tl;dr) It's turned out to be a pretty great rental property given the crazy low mortgage and the fact that its in a part of the city that pretty much all speculation leads to being the next up-and-coming area.. so my plan is to hold on to it for at least 5+ years as a rental property.
That left me with living back at home with the parents for the time being as I got my feet back under me financially through poker (after having not sold the house), and now looking to move back into the city on my own in the near future.
I'm just curious if you have any insight for me. It's probably pretty relevant that my career plans are essentially to keep generating cashflow through poker while investing it, most probably into real estate with income properties in Toronto. So if I do choose to buy, in 5 years from now if I'm looking to move into a home with a family (oh god) or whatnot, I'll probably be in a situation where I can hold onto it as a rental property (and hopefully add it to my already blossoming RE portfolio..)
I'm currently leaning towards buying, but I don't want to make a blind decision without at least taking renting into consideration beforehand. I'm guessing it might be a good idea for me to really run some numbers seeing how my flexibility gives me leverage and options, like say, renting the condo (for myself) and using the down payment $ for alternate RE opportunities like a separate rental unit for example.
Any advice or direction is much appreciated. Thanks.