Good news about Canadian interest rates. I read Mortgage Man's blog today and see that a recent post anticipates that interest rates will remain low into next yr. This is good stuff, and great timing when you own a couple properties and rely heavily on financing.

Return on investment rather low at this time. Slow going, low returns, no tenants. Still showing the duplex to interested people- I believe I have 2 showings today. Hoping that I can secure someone fairly immediately, if not at least for sometime in December. If anything I learned a lesson here. I should *not* have wasted time cleaning the place myself. Time is definitely money, so spend the couple hundred dollars on Molly Maid, get the place cleaned and *immediately* rented. Waiting a couple weeks and cleaning the place myself "to save money" has ended up costing me about oh, 5 times more than what it would have cost for Molly Maid. The delay in posting it as available for rent put me into bad weather, reduced the foot traffic and the number of people looking. I was also too choosy, telling people I was taking applications and would get back to them, worried I would get burned on another shitty tenant. So here I am now 6 weeks after my tenants moved out with no new lease secured, paying a mortgage and hydro on an empty unit. Lessons learned. Luckily when I refinanced this summer I went variable, got a really low rate and the financial implications of not having a tenant are less than they could have been, but still.... definitely expensive mistakes.

Today is clean up day- laundry, dishes and other mundane chores. Major chore today (aside from finding a tenant) is to get the Subaru jump started. I spent $1100 on repairs last month on it, doing brakes, replacing plugs I tore off driving away still plugged in, and getting the battery recharged. It has some slow drain from an unknown source that apparently 2 mechanics cannot locate. I suspect it is the alarm system but I don't know. Last week I got it recharged, drove it at least 4-5 days without issue, then made the mistake of playing with the alarm "to see if it still worked" and lo and behold, the next day... dead as a doornail. Luckily I was intelligent enough to continue to park BACKED IN to stalls, since I was still worried about the potential drain. But I have to get it going because sharing a vehicle is not going to work. =( If it don't rain, it pours!!!