When Steph and I met in Vancouver 8 years ago, she owned a condo in a four unit building in East Vancouver, and she was renting it out to a long term tenant. Several years after we moved together to Toronto, the Vancouver real estate market was at its peak, and Steph sold her place. The sale allowed us to buy out our home in Niagara Falls, and gave us a down payment for another investment sometime down the road. At the time, we weren’t sure we would ever want to live in Vancouver full-time again, as we had fallen in love with a life of travel. We owned a home in Niagara Falls that was working well for us, contributing to our income with short term rentals, and giving us the financial freedom to keep travelling. We felt good about getting out of the Vancouver market, but over the past couple years we kept coming back to the question of whether or not we would ever want to own property in our home city again.

We recently started having more and more conversations about what it would look like to buy something in Vancouver, whether or not we would ever be able to afford it, and how we could leverage a property there with the strict rental restrictions that the city has imposed. Even though we didn’t want to move back full-time, we’ve always known that Vancouver is home for us, and we really liked the idea of owning a little piece of our favourite city. It felt like a far off dream, but one that we continually came back to, hoping that it might be possible for us at some point in the future.

At the start of this year, we started paying closer attention to the Vancouver real estate market, as it was dipping into a low. Properties were sitting on the market for months, prices were down and being reduced multiple times before selling, and things had cooled off to a point that we really took notice. We thought that it might be our one and only chance to get back into the market, so we started considering the idea of an investment property. Something small that didn’t need to be suitable for us, and we would just get a long term tenant to pay down the mortgage. We figured it could be a nice way to ride the market back up, and maybe one day we could buy something else to live in ourselves. We started looking at listings online and crunching the numbers to see if it all made sense, and it looked possible.

When we got home from Mexico in January, we decided to go to an open house in Vancouver’s Chinatown neighbourhood, to see a very small condo unit in our price range. On a cold and sunny winter Sunday, we walked over to the building with Steph’s parents to have a look. The unit was nothing special, but certainly nice enough. We knew it would be a fine investment and we could get a long term tenant in there to cover our monthly mortgage and other costs. It was a safe choice, in a great neighbourhood, and it would have a good appreciation in value over the years. We left feeling like it was an alright option, and as we walked out of the building we saw a sign for another open house around the corner. I remembered seeing a listing online for the building next door, and I knew there was a small studio unit that was a similar size and price to what we had just seen. There had been an open house for it the day before, and I figured they must be showing it again, so I convinced everyone to go take a look.

When we walked into the building, it instantly reminded Steph and I of the first building in Vancouver we ever rented in together. It was modern and quirky, and had a great energy. We met the selling agent and wandered into the unit, quickly realizing that it wasn’t the small studio we expected. The condo was a bright and beautiful one bedroom plus den, with huge windows, two balcony spaces, tons of natural light, and a perfect floor plan. I immediately grabbed the brochure to find out what we were looking at, and my eyes darted to the price which was quite a bit more than we wanted to spend. Steph and I walked around the condo both with the same overwhelming feeling of how perfect the place was, and I grabbed her arm at one point to tell her that it just felt like our home. It was one of those moments where it just felt RIGHT. The corner unit was spacious and unique, private and well organized, and it ticked all of our boxes for a place to live. The agent explained to us that this was the third time the unit had been listed, and the price had been greatly reduced. She also went on to tell us that this was one of the few buildings in Vancouver that allowed short term rentals, meaning that new owners could Airbnb the space for a portion of the year. After we heard that, our feelings deepened. This was something we never expected to find, and it would mean that we could leverage the property as a lucrative investment, while also having a part time home when we came to Vancouver. It felt too perfect!

We walked out of the open house chattering excitedly about what a good opportunity this was, how we never expected to find a condo that suited us so well, and how it made perfect sense to buy. We started doing all of the calculations to see if it was even possible. We researched mortgage rates, utility costs, rental rates, and Airbnb licenses, and we spent hours going over everything to continually come to the same conclusion. We could do this. This made sense for us.

The following day we met with our realtor to gush about the place, and explain that we had completely fallen in love with it. He walked us through what we would need to do to make a move on it, and we quickly started gathering everything. The next day we were working on an offer, and that evening we submitted it, knowing that another offer had also gone in. We waited impatiently, so sure that this place was meant for us, trying to squash any doubt in our minds. A couple of hours later, we got the incredible news that our offer had been accepted! We screamed and cried and popped open a celebratory drink, in disbelief that this was all happening in just a matter of days.

After our accepted offer, the hard work really began. We had one week to get our financing arranged, and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy to qualify for a mortgage with the new regulations in Canada. We are both self-employed, and regardless of the fact that we have equity in another home, we don’t necessarily look great on paper. Steph spent days compiling everything we would need, and discussing our options with a mortgage broker. We were willing to do whatever it took, including asking for help if we needed it. We were dedicated to making this happen because we knew it felt right. At the end of the week the mortgage broker came back to us with bad news, and told us that no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t make it work. The numbers just weren’t there, and the rules were too strict. I fell apart in tears wondering why this would have all happened, only to reach a dead end. I knew we could do it. We knew the place was ours and it was all meant to work out. We had to keep trying.

Later that day we sat down with our personal bank to try and put together an application. We also reached out to our realtor who referred us to a mortgage specialist at a local credit union. We weren’t going to give up, and we decided to exhaust all options before we were ready to admit defeat. We started going back and forth with the bank and the credit union answering all of their questions, compiling all of our documents, and trying to make it happen one way or another. The weekend came and we were waiting for answers, having no idea what was going to happen. On the Monday we still didn’t know. We had a 6pm deadline on Tuesday and it was down to the wire. Tuesday morning we got an email from the bank with a conditional approval. It wasn’t perfect, but it was promising. We could make it work if we had to. We were waiting to hear from the credit union to see if they had better news, but it was getting so close. In the late afternoon we decided we had to move forward and remove the subjects on our offer, deciding that the conditional approval was good enough to go ahead, but we still felt weary. As we sat down to sign the documents, another email came through from the credit union: Approved!

It was the biggest rollercoaster of a week that we have ever experienced, but when it was all over, we had an accepted offer on our dream condo, and an approved mortgage with great terms, despite being told it wasn’t possible. We couldn’t possibly be more excited!

So, what does this mean for us? Well, we aren’t moving back to Vancouver full-time, and we aren’t going to stop travelling. But we are going to have a place that’s fully ours when we come home, and another investment that we can leverage. It’s a new endeavour that will further contribute to our life of adventure! These next few months we are going to find out how we will handle managing three units in two different properties (wish us luck!). We are going to set up our new place, and pour all our energy into making it perfect. We are going to tackle this new chapter, and see where it takes us. We’re so glad that we followed our hearts and pushed ourselves to make this happen. It was a lot of work, we had to stretch ourselves beyond what we thought was possible, get out of our comfort zones, and even ask for help (which isn’t always easy to do). But we’re SO glad that we did, because we know this is what we are meant to do next.

Thanks for reading!

The post A Major Life Update! appeared first on Lez See the World.

What is Wealthsimple

Wealthsimple is a Canadian online investment management service that specializes in “robo investing”. The company’s financial advisors invest your funds (with no account minimum) in a diversified portfolio, and their technology maximizes your earnings with automatic rebalancing, dividend reinvesting, and tax loss harvesting. Their online service is available in Canada, the US, and the UK, and offers a low fee alternative to traditional investing. All you do is open the account, and everything is handled for you. One of the things that really attracted us to their service, is Wealthsimple’s socially responsible investing. This allows you to choose a portfolio that invests in initiatives that align with your values when it comes to environmental and social impact. Another specification you can make, is what risk level you’re comfortable with. You can tailor everything to your individual needs, and your custom portfolio will be designed to help you meet your personal financial goals.

Why Investing is Important

Whatever it is you’re saving for, the best time to start investing is now. Especially for reaching your long term financial goals, research has shown that passive investing is the best way to grow your money. Staying the course during market fluctuations, and choosing the risk level that you’re comfortable with, is going to be the most effective way to profit over time. The nice thing about Wealthsimple is that there are no account minimums, so you can literally start with just your spare change. There are options to turn on auto deposits, or you can just move over extra cash when you have it. There are also no fees to withdraw your money at any time. If you’re interested in opening an account, you can click here to get your first $10,000 managed free for a year.

We don’t consider ourselves experts in personal finance, but we are trying to be really open to our community by starting these conversations about money. We believe in having healthy and productive discussions about wealth and finance, because it strengthens our relationship with money, and helps to break the stigma surrounding the topic. If you’re interested in learning more about how we’re working on financial freedom, head to our post about our strategy for financial wellness.

What are your favourite investment tools? Let us know in the comments below how you’re saving for the future, and share your personal experience with investing.

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this blog post may be affiliate links. This means that at no additional cost to you, we could make a small commission through your purchase. We only recommend products and services that we truly believe in, and the income generated goes toward creating more content on this website for you to enjoy for free.

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Strengthen Your Relationship With Money

Just like everything in our lives, we have a relationship with money whether we like it or not. And what that relationship looks like, has an enormous impact on our financial wellness. Most of us probably have room for improvement in this area, and strengthening this relationship is a very important place to start. Think about your relationship with money, and determine whether you may have some underlying beliefs that help to shape this relationship. Does it make you uncomfortable to talk about money? Do you see yourself as someone who is always struggling financially, or as someone who is capable and worthy of financial abundance? Does earning a lot of money make you feel selfish or greedy? Do you believe that it’s continually difficult to make the money that you want, or do you feel like money is available to you when you need it? Digging deep and asking yourself these questions, is a really important step to improving your relationship with money. We all come from different childhood backgrounds and upbringings, but none of that determines our financial success in adulthood. It’s so easy to let our beliefs about money rule our lives, and stop ourselves from being in the position that we are truly capable of being in. Remember that some people come from nothing, and are able to create enormous financial success in their lives, and other people who are raised with exceptional wealth, are unable to maintain it. It’s very easy to look at someone else’s success with money and come up with reasons of why it was possible for them, but it isn’t possible for you. And that kind of thinking is exactly what will keep you stuck in your current situation, rather than finding your own financial success that you are capable and deserving of. We highly recommend educating yourself as much as possible, and reading books and articles on financial wellness. My favourite is ‘You are a Badass at Making Money’ by Jen Sincero. Commit yourself to changing your beliefs about money, and strengthening your relationship with your finances, and see what can happen!

Develop a Savings Plan

No matter our financial situation, we are all usually saving our money for something. Saving up for the downpayment on a house, or a new car, or a trip, or our child’s college fund. There is always a reason to be saving our money, but having a proper savings plan doesn’t seem as common. I remember when I was in my very early twenties working full time as a performer and artist, I was mostly living paycheque to paycheque. After I had booked a few high paying film and television jobs, I had more than enough money to pay my expenses, and really for the first time, had money that I didn’t know what to do with. I realized I had no idea how to manage my finances aside from keeping a chequeing account for my bills. I didn’t even have a savings account, let alone know anything about tax-free savings accounts, or retirement savings plans. Whatever it is we’re saving for, it’s important to develop a plan for our savings. Not just a plan of what we are saving the money for, but a plan for how to actually save it. Maybe it means setting up a retirement savings plan that you contribute to annually. Maybe it means opening a savings account that you automatically contribute to each month from your earnings. Get real about your savings. Find out exactly how much you need for that downpayment, new car, upcoming trip, or college fund. Crunch the numbers and write it all down to know where you’re at, and then come up with a solid plan of how and when you will reach your goals. Be specific, be organized, and believe that you are capable of saving the money. Our favourite tool for saving is Tangerine. It’s a direct bank with no-fee savings accounts, and not only does it help us put aside money to reach our goals, we’ve saved thousands of dollars in banking fees, and we’ve earned thousands of dollars in interest from their high interest rates. If you’re interested in setting up a Tangerine account, use our Orange Key for a sign up bonus: 35995921S1. Depending on your country, your banking options will differ, but developing a good savings plan means finding the best option for you. So go do it!

Invest

Another aspect of financial wellness that we all likely never learned enough about before adulthood, is investing. Having your money make you money. While there are many different ways to invest to help reach different short and long term goals, it can all be quite overwhelming. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, investment portfolios, real estate, and the list goes on. Where do you even start!? While it’s easy to look at all of it and think that you don’t know enough about it, it’s too complicated, and you’re not capable of learning how to make smart investment choices, why not decide the opposite? Maybe you don’t know much about it now, but you can commit to educating yourself and learning as much as you can. Yes it is complicated, but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. Everyone is capable of taking control of their finances and making smart investments, and we are all deserving of financial abundance. Change your thinking around investing and make it a priority in your journey toward financial success. Just like many other people, we spent years feeling slightly overwhelmed by the idea of investing, and we weren’t sure what was the best place for any extra money we had that was available to invest. We finally took it upon ourselves to do a lot of research, and come up with the best plan for our goals. Our favourite investment tool right now is called Wealthsimple. Known as, investing on autopilot, Wealthsimple is an online investment management service, aimed to make investing easier. Rather than talking to an expensive financial advisor, we signed up with Wealthsimple online and outlined our investment goals. The website created a diversified investment portfolio for each of us based on our needs and preferred level of risk, and it does all of the leg work for us. It manages our assets, makes trades, re-invests our dividends, and provides us with statements of our accounts so we can see what’s happening. We don’t have to do anything! We also love that we were able to choose a “socially responsible” portfolio, that aligns with our values and only invests in responsible initiatives. If you’re interested in signing up for a Wealthsimple account, you can use my invite code to get your first $10,000 managed free for a year. We are also very interested in real estate investing, but more on that in another post!

What are your personal pillars for financial wellness? Let us know in the comments below how you maintain a healthy relationship with money, and what you’re doing to stay focused on a path toward financial success.

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this blog post are affiliate links. This means that at no additional cost to you, we could make a small commission through your purchase. We only recommend products and services that we truly believe in, and the income generated goes toward creating more content on this website for you to enjoy for free.

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