Of all the ways you could invest in real estate, becoming a landlord is one of the most expensive; and a recent change in Kijiji’s policies have just shined the light on why. Aside from simply the costs of obtaining a mortgage for the investment property, there are maintenance costs, property taxes, and an assortment of other costs and fees that go along with owning a property and renting it out to tenants. And now Kijiji has just added onto those.
Kijiji made the announcement that they were going to start charging for rental ads on their website by saying,
“We wanted to reach out to you today to let you know of some changes that will be taking place on Kijiji, specifically the Apartment & Condos for Rent category will become a pay-per-insertion category. We understand this may come as a surprise to some of our regular posters and to help alleviate the impact, we have put into place the following measures.”
The announcement went on to say that concurrent listers will be limited to three active listings at any one time; and for any ad that goes over those 3, they will be charged $29.99 for each one.
Kijiji has already been highly criticized for the move by private landlords and holders of investment properties. Kijiji has more than 3 million Canadians using their real estate section each month, so the change is going to have large impacts on many, many people.
All of it, while discouraging to landlords, is reason to make private investors smile. Not only are they already avoiding all kinds of hassles and fees that come along with being a landlord, but now they’re escaping even more fees. Because there is no advertising with private mortgage investing, and there are few people other than a mortgage broker that you need to rely on to get the deal done. Which means there are fewer people who have control over those deals.