Reddit reviews Real Estate Investing in Canada: Creating Wealth with the ACRE System

The first and most important piece of advice is to read this book. All of your questions will be answered there.

> Any tips or huge pitfalls to look out for?

There are tons, but the most important is to know your market - what are rents in the area you are looking in? Are cheaper properties necessarily better? Maybe not.

> would doing this as a company rather than as individuals make things easier or harder?

This question was asked in context of financing and in that case it will make no difference except that incorporating may actually complicate things a little. On the other hand, you are entering into a business relationship with someone, even if it is your brother, and incorporating would require organizing the details ahead of time and avoiding potential pitfalls down the road.

> I'm wondering whether it's worth hiring a management company

For one property it is better to be hands on to understand what is going on. The 2 a.m. calls are infrequent (depending on your tenant class) and the learning you'll do is much more important.

> our realtor suggested that it might make more sense for one of us to move out into the "new rental" property for a year to shield it from capital gains

This is completely wrong information and would be enough for me to preclude this individual from being my realtor. You are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars here and to have someone steer you wrong from the beginning should give you pause.