open a high class whore house/ massage parlor

we're not supposed to be giving serious answers... that's not the RS way

You don't have nearly enough to open a franchise

This is actually a great idea.
Sure it's a chain store blah blah blah but you look at any Red Robin's location (which essentially runs on the same business models but serve different type of foods) and all you see is fucking profit.

I've heard the same, that its around $500K-1M to buy a Tims franchise, and it'll be profitable in its first year. Tims controls where the franchises are located, so they don't put franchises in places that are unlikely to be immediately profitable.

Tim Horton's isn't expanding in Canada anymore, unless you are interested in heading over to the middle east.

Gold is only a good investment if you time your exit, and someone asking about such a question here isn't going to be able to know when to get out.

I would open up a KFC on the corner of Burrard/Robson where HMV was. Hire American employees down from the south to give it that American edge.

there is an actual convention that you can go to if you are looking at opening a franchise

buy a ferrari enzo...sell it in 30 years so your kids will leech off you too

There are only 2 kfcs left in vancouver and there is a reason for that. Churches on the other hand ;)

bet on GSP, Anderson Silva and Jone Jones :fuckyea:

lol the only one in Vancouver I know of is Kingsway and Gladstone....

broadway near fraser, knight and 49th and the one on davie

subway franchise, its bigger than mcdonalds now.

Most of the franchises people are listing are impossible to get.

I hear Papa Johns take and bake pizza is expanding into BC and is looking for people.

Open up a Bubble tea store at YVR airport....Business YO!!!

My friends have been to these and found them for the most part useless. Mostly awful website stuff.

Churches chicken is awful, god do I miss KFC in Kits.

Put it all down on CUU

Calculate the cap rate if you want to be serious. You'll find your money would make more in an online savings account.

4 1bdrm condos @$250K rented at $1K/mn - $7K of property taxes - $100/mn*4 of condo fees == ~$36K/mn or 3.6% of $1M and that's not accounting for maintenance, vacancy, management, acquisition fees ...

Also perhaps you missed the BCREA release for Oct that showed prices increased 0.1% from Oct 2010, and they are forecasting a drop for Oct 2012. So don't count on appreciation.

A client of mine had a bunch of condos in DT and a building in the West End and cleared out of all of it. In retrospect-excellently timed.

I think the only ones they were left with were their personal apartments and one in a new building that was intended to be a residence, but couldn't sell the old one.

There can be value in buildings-you need to buy a shitpile, re-build it and wait for 10 years. It's not a growth business, its a retirement fund.

If you actually read the OP you will realize that this thread is about what would you do IF YOU had a million dollars to start a business. He/she is not asking what they should do with their million dollars.

I've actually been trying to find info on the costs of owning a condo for a while, thanks for posting that. Just want to clarify though, for the cost of one condo:

Assume:
250k paid out with no mortgage
I want to actually compare with going rates right now on high interest GICs.

Scenario 1: GIC (using 250,000 for a easy flat number)
- best rate I have at the moment is 1.5% annually
- equates to $3,900 per year in interest

Scenario 2: Condo
- $250,000 assume this includes aquisition costs for a flat simple number (are these around 2-4%?)
- using your numbers:
- positive +1,000/month
- neg -100/month
- neg -2,000/year (??? I'm assuming the 7k in property taxes is for all 4 condos?..)
- I still come up to $12,000 income per year - 2,000 - 1,200 = +$8800..

This is assuming I manage it by myself (collecting rent every month) and no maintenance work / vacancy.

I know I'm probably missing something, but aside from depreciating/appreciating value of the condo, what else?
Cap rate of 3.5% isn't bad?