The million dollar question

[Sander Steenacker]

So I read: The Book on Rental Property Investing, from Brandon Turner.

Been now looking into other books and also the local market to see where i can start my real-estate investing. But I feel like I'm missing something. The ratio's that are talked about in the book like price to rent ratio, CoCROI, the 2% rule,... are all completely off compared to my local or even national market.

To give an example, The best deal I could find (even outside my budget) was for a 20 apartment building. Even with a steep discount I would end up paying about 115k per apartment, but would have to make some decent renovations ending me at about 140k per apartment. That would be about 700/month in loans at current rates in my country. The rent I can ask for these apartments would be about 700-750/month. So even the best deal I could find + giving myself a discount (if I negotiate well) I'm still only make break even before expenses like insurance, taxes,...

And this is the best deal I could find. My own place just got estimated and is worth 300k and is currently rented out for 850/month. My loan on it is 1200/month. Most units I found are like these ratio's.

So I feel like I'm missing something or is it possible that the price/rent ratio is just totally off in my region. I am from Belgium (Europe) btw