No Money Down Real Estate Deals - The REAL Cost

On the surface, no money down, also called 100% Financing on an investment property seems like a fantastic idea. With no money down, it seems you can't go wrong. But, that is not necessarily true.

CMHC (Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation), who insures non-conventional mortgages (less than 20% down payment mortgages) in Canada, introduced the 100% financing for investment properties (the government is pulling these off the market effective October 2008). This same product has been in existence for a couple of years for primary residence purchases but now, if you want to get into real estate investing (and your credit is great and you can qualify for the 100% financing), you no longer need a stack of cash to jump in! The challenge is obtaining rent that's high enough to cover the mortgage and the 7.25% insurance premium they hit you with! Here's an example:

* $300,000 purchase price (100% financed)

* 7.25% CMHC insurance fee ($21,750)

* Total mortgage of $321,750

* Amortized over 25 years at a 5.99% interest rate =

* $2,056.67 monthly payment!

So, right off the bat you have negative equity of $21,750. If you wish to sell that property after 5 years, your mortgage balance will be $289,008. The property will have had to appreciate at least 15% over those years just to get a little bit of money out of it (remember there's sales commissions, legal fees, property purchase taxes, etc. that will also come out of the sale price).

The next challenge is getting the $3,000 in rent each month that you would need to carry this property. Remember, it's not just about covering the mortgage. You also have:

* Insurance fees (approx. 5% of rent);

* Management fees (approx. 5% of rent);

* Maintenance fees (5% to 10% or more);

* Water, hydro, other utilities (2% to 5% of rent);

* Strata or condo fees, if applicable (10% or more);

* Vacancy coverage (2% to 5%), etc.

From our experience, if you keep your mortgage payment at a maximum of 65% of your rental income, you should be pretty close to having neutral or even positive income. In this example, that means you want to earn approx. $3,200 in rent to cover everything.

Now, there are two advantages to using no money down deals. When you put no money down:

1. You don't need lots of cash to begin investing; and

2. Potential for a GREAT return on investment (ROI) if the market is on the upswing;

So, it's not the worst thing to use, but be very aware of what it will "cost" you in terms of potential negative monthly cashflow and negative equity.

Now, what about other forms of 100% financing? Well, there are creative ways of obtaining 100% financing such as Vendor Take Back's (the Seller holds the mortgage on the property); Obtaining a conventional mortgage (80% loan to value) thru a bank or lender and then obtaining a 2nd mortgage from either the Vendor or a private lender and registering it after you purchase the property (you must still have the 20% down payment upon closing); or using your line of credit for the 20% down payment. So, this is not to say that 100% financing doesn't work or isn't useful, it's just quite costly to do it. Costly because not only your monthly debt (mortgage/line of credit) servicing is higher, but usually a 2nd mortgage or line of credit interest rate is substantially higher than a 1st mortgage rate.

I have done 100% financing once and 98% financing another time, and the only reason I was able to was because both sellers were very motivated to sell. Why were they so motivated? Because their properties were beat up and in bad areas. The rent vs. financing was strong in both cases, so I bought. I wouldn't do it again. As the saying goes, "You get what you pay for".