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moneysense.ca, 10/01/07
More Canadian Blogs
In the past month or so, I have discovered a couple more Canadian blogs out there that I think are worth checking out:
A Canadian on Wall Street is an investment and trading blog written by a Vancouver-based investor. While posts are sporadic, they deal with the topic at hand at some depth. An example is a recent post that wondered when Canadian companies are going to expand abroad. (RSS Feed)
Bring the Cash Flow is written by 26-year old Nick Gifford from London, Ontario, who dreams of escaping the cubicle by building wealth through real estate. At his tender age, he already owns two rental properties. I’ve never been interested in owning rental properties, so it is fascinating to read the adventures of a budding real-estate mogul. (RSS Feed)
NB: Many thanks to Larry MacDonald of Investment Ideas for his nice mention of this blog in his Round-up of Canadian financial blogs.
moneysense.ca, 10/01/07
Canadian Capitalist is by far the “dean” of Canadian personal finance blogs.
Thanks to Larry for mentioning my blog also!
FT
http://www.milliondollarjourney.com
Thanks for the hat tip; I actually plan on writing pretty regularly now, it was sporadic before as it was originally a site directed more at friends who were interested in my investing philosophies.
I will go as far to say that Canadian Capitalist inspired me to start my blog!
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talking about real estate: I’ve never been into “real” real estate (renting properties bought through leveraging, etc.) but I try to keep my finger in it by buying REITs. I’m not sure yet if those are worth it though … does anybody have an opinion on this?
Wonder why Larry mentioned me with you guys? Hmmm…
–C8j
CMBR: Not sure if you are referring to REITs or investment real estate. You should absolutely hold REITs. In fact, according to David Swensen real estate has risk-return characteristics that is between stocks and bonds.
CMBR: I also love REITs but for the most part, they’re all overvalued right now. In my opinion, there is only one that is a “speculative buy” right now, Huntingdon REIT (symbol HNT.UN) which is a junior Winnipeg based REIT with mostly Office & Industrial properties. I call it a speculative buy because they are currently paying out more than 100% of their FFO so there is a strong likelihood of a distribution cut to bring it back into line. There is a chance that the cut may not come to pass, which is why it’s speculative. Don’t bet the farm on this one, but it might be worth having a small holding in it.
Some other REITs may get intentionally blown up by Flaherty, because he already made it known that he wants to fully tax all of the ones that carry on active businesses. Namely, the hotels, assisted living (retirement homes) and any others that fall into this category. Since he hasn’t published the exact definition of the REITs that he plans to blow up, then it is kind of a minefield out there right now.
So, if you’re a cautious investor, it’s better to wait until the rules come out. The big name REITs (Riocan, Boardwalk, CREIT, etc) are way overpriced right now – in my opinion.
I forgot my disclosure! I used to own HNT.UN, but sold it off in Dec for 2006 tax-loss selling purposes. I’ve been meaning to get back into it because it has fallen so far (and therefore the yield has gone up to 12%), but it looks like its already started taking off.
CC: yes I’m talking about REITs … do you think they’re overpriced like Phil S says?
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Phil: interesting reply .. I had not considered going speculative with REITs but it might add some fizz to the very ordinary returns I got from Riocan so far. Obviously, that would be only for a very small percentage of my portfolio.
Talking about retirement homes … I still have some RRR-UN. If they get taxed, I wonder if they can even survive. They’ve been struggling recently.
Hi Larry,
Thanks very much for the plug, it is appreciated. I enjoy reading your site and have tracked back a few of your posts.
The discussion here about REITs is nice to see. I haven’t purchased any REITs yet, because I’ve been concentrating my money on making my own investments in real estate, however I am looking to diversify into stocks, bonds and a couple of REITs in the near future.
Thanks again.
As full disclosure, I’ve avoided REITs for more than two years, since I thought they were way overpriced. I still hold that opinion. At some point, they will get cheaper and I intend to buy in at that point through XRE.
Does anyone own any of Barclay’s iShares? They have one that is indexed to Canadian REITs.
iShares CDN REIT Sector Index Fund (XRE)
Nick
Nick: I am not Larry. Larry MacDonald is a columnist and author and writes the Investment Ideas blog (Link).
The XRE is a market weighted index fund, which means the bigger REITs have more influence on the holdings than the smaller ones. As I mentioned before, I believe the big REITs in Canada are way overpriced (so their yields are low).
I have no complaints over REIT investments over the past 2 years. I made a nice 25% gain on Alexis Nihon when Cominar tabled their offer to take them over. Today down stateside, Cerberus the LBO firm is trying to take over Equity Office Properties, the largest US REIT. It’s obviously a hot REIT market right now, so I don’t think it’s a great sector for “new money” right now. The speculative buy on Huntingdon excepted, of course.
blogs definitely help people on finding/realizing some other things. opinion from different people with same interest gave some help, knowledge and such to the reader…i have blogs for different things from personal to professional and hopefully people who read those get things from each posts…thanks for your blog and i do learn some things…i’ll read thoroughly…
Also check out http://www.veloxmortgage.com/blog/ for updates on Canadian mortgage rates, real estate new and bank policies.