Financing is the first filter. A property you will not live in is not eligible for the insured minimum down payment of 5 percent to $500,000 and 10 percent above that, so plan on 20 percent down and a rate slightly above the owner-occupied posted offering. Lenders will count only a portion of the rent toward your ratios, and they will want a lease, not a projection.
Then check the unit is legal. The City of Saskatoon requires a secondary suite to be permitted and inspected, and an unpermitted basement suite is income you cannot advertise, cannot insure properly and cannot count on when you resell. The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 governs the tenancy itself, including notice periods and how a rent increase has to be delivered.
The number that decides the whole thing is what the building is actually worth today, and that is where public data fails. Improvements made without a permit never reach the record, so an online estimate can be low on a property that has been carefully maintained and high on one that has not. Joel Dyck's hand-reviewed valuation prices what is physically there against sales that genuinely compare.