Expert Property Management Advice

What to Expect from the Phase Two Changes to The Alberta Condominium Property Act

A brief summary of Stage One and Two regulation changes that came (or will come) to the The Alberta Condominium Property Act.

Should You Renovate Your Investment Property in 2019?

When considering renovating an investment property, investors must always keep in mind what benefits they can realistically to achieve from such an undertaking. Whether it’s attracting new tenants, keeping current ones satisfied, or reducing vacancy rates and turnover, the goal is to add value to your property that can be realized with a greater return on investment. 

What are the Current Rules for Rent Increases in Alberta?

In Alberta, there is no limit on how much a landlord can increase the rent. So, what are the rules for rent increases in Alberta?

How to Find and Attract Quality Tenants

Attracting great tenants is key to running an excellent rental property, but finding the right tenant is always a challenge for property managers. Quality renters are out there, but they won’t fall on your lap. Spend the time to come up with good ads that will attract quality tenants.

How Marijuana Legalization Affects Insurance Costs in Properties

Yes, cannabis is legal in Canada, but there are provisions to follow if people want to use it recreationally. Learn how this impacts property insurance costs.

Proper Building Maintenance and Building Assessments

Proper building maintenance and building assessments are a vital part of property management. A building performance targets the areas of your apartment that cost you the most money and eat into your profits. It puts each expense under a magnifying glass, looking at it from every angle possible and evaluating it compared to averages.

What You Need to Know about Cannabis in Condos

For many condo owners and tenants, this legalization won’t change the outcome; that means they won’t be able to smoke cannabis in condos. But what does this mean for individuals who depend on marijuana for medicinal purposes?

5 Ways A Property Management Company Can Save You Money

If you were to keep track of all of the time spent on phone calls with tenants, maintenance repairs, and other tasks, it would add up to be a full-time job.

What Is A Spring Walkabout And Why Are They Important?

Spring has finally arrived in Edmonton and with its delayed arrival, people can now see the remnants of winter’s damage.

Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Manage Your Investment Property

Purchasing an investment property can be an exciting endeavour. If your apartment building is in an excellent location, in good shape and has the right tenants, you can earn a lot of money from your rental units.

Rental Pools Can Boost Your Financial Portfolio

For those investors that like to have some certainty in their portfolio, being a member of a rental pool is the way to go!

How To Manage College-age Tenants

If you’ve been strategic enough to purchase an apartment building near a college or university, there’s a 99% chance most of your tenants will be students. Affordable dorms are becoming rarer, so students are looking elsewhere to find rooms for the school year. Lucky you!

Conquering The Laundry Battlefield: How To Bring Tenants Some Peace

In newer apartment buildings, units have a washer and dryer hookup. The older ones have no such luxury. For many tenants, this room is the most frustrating part of living in a building community. It’s here where respect is little, revenge is sweet, and clothing is no more.

10 Tips For Beginner Real Estate Investors

We want you to find success in your endeavour, so we want to give you some tips about real estate investing. Put them to good use, and you’ll be a pro in no time!

Transitioning Property Management Companies: What Braden Equities Inc. Requires

Are you feeling underwhelmed by your current property management company because they aren’t delivering on their promises? Is your apartment building suffering from maintenance issues, high turnover, or high vacancy?

A Go-To Move Out Checklist for Landlords

A go-to move out checklist is an essential tool for landlords. Moving tenants out of rental units requires thoroughness and keen observation, which a move out checklist assists with. It also serves as an official record of wear and tear in a suite.

Is Your Property Management Company Still Profitable During a Downturn?

Everyone knows there’s a big difference between talking the talk and walking the walk. Property management companies can excite you with plans and promises, but do they actually deliver on them? Is the one you hired worth the expense?

How to Raise the Performance of Your Apartment Building

If your apartment building is underperforming, something is off within your operations of the property. Losing money on your investment could be a lack of management experience, poor quality tenants, or lackluster amenities.

How Real Estate Investors Can Dig Their Way Out of Alberta’s Economic Hole

Alberta’s recent recession is still on the minds of people throughout the province. As it’s likely to go down as the worst yet that the province has experienced, it’s no wonder people can’t stop talking about it; neither can investors.

5 KPI’s to Track the Effectiveness of Your Property Management Company

Enlisting the help of a property management company makes sense for many investors who may not have the time to devote the proper attention to their investment. A property management company can maintain and improve the day-to-day operations of your multi-family building.

How Property Management Expertise Can Help Improve Your Multi-Family Building Performance

Being a landlord isn’t the easiest job by any means. In fact, if you’re not up to it, your multi-family investment property can suffer due to inexperience, a lack of direction, or a wayward strategy.

Get Your Online Apartment Rental Ads Noticed With These 5 Tips

Advertising online is an effective avenue to fill vacancies in your multi-family building. Not only is online advertising more cost effective than traditional print methods, but it has a much farther reach, allowing hundreds of people to view your unit.

Braden Equities Adopts New Technology to Enhance Client Experience

At Braden Equities, we strive to be a leading property management company that investors or condominium corporations can turn to for assistance in running their multi-family building(s).

5 Qualities of a Great Property Manager

Finding an exemplary property manager can be a big task. This person will be the one looking after the building, taking care of day-to-day operations, and keeping a low vacancy rate. That’s a big order to fill, and so you need someone capable of doing the job.

How to Protect Your Property From Sewer Backup

Sewer backup is a messy business and can cost you thousands of dollars in repairs. You would have to fix your sewer line and any damage the backup may have caused to your multi-family property. When it comes to sewer backup, it’s worthwhile to be proactive instead of reactive.

5 Tips on How to Build a Strong Relationship With Your Property Manager

As much as you may not like to think this, you can’t be a one-man show—at least not an effective one. It’s hard to be responsible for the daily operations of your investment when you don’t have the knowledge or experience needed.

How Location Affects Your Apartment Building’s Profitability

Multifamily prices and rental rates vary from one neighbourhood to the other depending on neighbourhood characteristics and environments.

6 Tips for a Great Tenant/Property Manager Relationship

The business of managing property is really a business about relationships. Building and maintaining these relationships will help you as a property manager create a friendly, close-knit condo community.

A Guide to Choosing the Best Property Management Company

When searching for a reputable property management company, it will become apparent that there are numerous property management companies to pick from, and this can make it difficult to make a decision.

Crash Course: Property Management

In your hunt for the right partner, it is important to recognize that there are excellent property management companies out there who can completely change your investment experience.

Choosing a Property Management Company for the Right Reasons

Property management requires a significant investment of time and effort. That’s why many condominium corporations will decide to hire a property management company.

How to Prepare Your Multifamily Building for Winter After Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Family, food, and fun are all parts of what Canadians love about this particular holiday.

Behind Braden Equities Inc. – Meet Braden Paquette

Braden Paquette, B.Mgmt, Vice President of Braden Equities Inc. began working with the company in 2005 and has now acquired shares, which in a few years will eventually lead to his assuming the role of Broker.

How Can I Maintain Effective Tenant Communication?

Every property owner and manager knows that effective and regular communication is essential to running an efficient and profitable building. But that doesn’t mean they know how to do it right.

Location and Property Management: Urban Versus Suburban

It may not seem like the location of a specific apartment building would have a huge impact on the way in which the property should be managed.

Should I Lease or Buy Laundry Machines for My Multifamily Building?

Whether you’re a 10-unit multifamily building, or a 30-unit apartment complex, getting the equipment to take care of your tenants’ washing of clothes is fairly important.

Why Renovating Your Income Property in a Tough Economy Is Smart

The last year has been very difficult for many multi-family property owners in Alberta. The average property investor has experianced reduced spending and higher vacancy rates as a result of the recession which has had a tough impact on real estate investors in particular.

4 Traits of an Effective Property Management Company

First of all, it is important to recognize that in general, property management companies don’t have great reputations. They likely get this bad name because the majority of them are not of high quality.

How the Coming Decades Will Shape Edmonton’s Downtown Core

Downtown Edmonton has been riding quite a development wave for the past few years. There has been an influx of announcements regarding major construction projects in the city’s core. Many of these ventures will be new office, residential or government developments.

Why Rent a Suite That Is Managed by Braden Equities Inc?

With over 40 years in business, Braden Equities Inc. is one of Edmonton and area’s premier property management companies.

5 Ways to Decrease Tenant Turnover

Making sure that tenants are happy should be a top priority for all property managers. The more satisfied they are with their living situation, the more likely they will stay with you long term, and that you won’t have to deal with the complications of tenant turnover.

What Services Should a Property Manager Offer?

Hiring a property manager is the best way to keep the day-to-day tasks of running your real estate investment under control.

7 Tips for Proactive Building Maintenance

The biggest test that a property manager will face is not how well they run things when there are no problems, but how they respond during an emergency or crisis.

Preventing Property Management Problems During the Holidays

It’s every landlord’s worst nightmare. You’re just sitting down for a family dinner during the holidays when your phone rings. It’s a tenant calling, and they have an emergency, so you’re going to have to go deal with it.

Decorating Your Building for the Holidays

The holidays are a wonderful chance to surprise and delight your tenants. Creating stunning holiday decorations for your building’s exterior or interior greatly enhances the entire property. Not only will your renters feel like their landlord really cares, but your image will also receive a boost, and people’s spirits will genuinely be raised.

What’s the Best Gift for Your Tenants?

It’s important to do something for your tenants at least once during their tenancy, and the holidays are the perfect opportunity to do so. Showing your appreciation to your favourite tenants encourages them to continue renting with you, and gifts for the more mediocre tenants influence them to be better.

Advancements in Property Management Technology

Over the past decade, technological advances have completely revolutionized the property management industry.

Waste Disposal in Commercial Properties: Part 2

One of the best ways to cut down on the costs of waste management in your commercial property is to encourage your tenants to recycle and reuse things instead of throwing them in the garbage.

Waste Disposal in Commercial Properties: Part 1

One of the easiest ways to cut down on and eliminate unnecessary costs is to properly manage your investment’s waste disposal. Quite simply, an apartment or condo building with garbage and litter strewn about is the fastest way to lose tenants. If owners want to avoid this, they have almost no option but to bite the bullet and clean the mess up.

Laminate Flooring Versus Carpet: Part 2

This is an important question for all landlords, and of course there is going to be upside and downside to either choice. Every situation is different depending on variables such as what type of renter you have, or how much money the unit brings in.

Laminate Flooring Versus Carpet: Part One

Most landlords have to undergo the painstaking process of renovating or upgrading their property at one point or another. Unfortunately, it’s often after something unpleasant has happened, such as a flood or fire, or even damage from tenants.

LED Lighting Versus Traditional Lighting

There is almost nothing worse than dingy apartment building hallways, depressing lobbies, dismal laundry rooms or scary parking lots. Sometimes these problems are just a matter of lighting.

7 Ways to Reduce Your Lawn Maintenance

When it comes to the common lawn spaces in condo and apartment buildings, some owners are deciding that less is more. That means less mowing, less edging, less fertilizing and less weeding, which in turn means lower costs and more time to focus on other tasks.

The Braden Vision: Interview With a Property Manager – Part Two

Recently, we sat down with John, one of the property managers here at Braden Equities. We had the chance to ask him about his experiences in property management, the challenges that he faces day-to-day, and where he sees the industry headed.

The Braden Vision: Interview With a Property Manager – Part One

Recently, we sat down with John, one of the property managers here at Braden Equities. We had the chance to ask him about his experiences in property management, the challenges that he faces day-to-day, and where he sees the industry headed.