Setting Criteria for Rental Property

[Sara Taslitt]

Hello- I am new to real estate investing. I am hoping to purchase my first multi-family property by the close of 2018. One thing that seems to be uniform through out all my readings and studying is how important it is to set your criteria for what you want in a property and stick to it.

I have tentatively set my criteria, but I struggle with knowing if I have done a good job in doing this. I ideally would like a property built with in the last 30 years but then this limits my search. What do other investors think? I am looking in Massachusetts so we have a lot of older properties, some of which are redone and look very nice and rentable but I worry about dealing with maintenance issues that come with older properties.

Any ideas are welcome!

[Ned Carey]

@Sara Taslitt  I work in Baltimore city and like your area has lots of old properties. To me the age is not important. The condition or effective age is.   30year old property can be beat to crap.  A 40 or 50 year old property has probably been totally redone at some point. Or perhaps is ready to be redone now and is an opportunity to add value. 

A guy I learned from early emphasized how important criteria are.  He is not investing any more, I still am. 

My criteria is simple

1. Is it a great deal - not just a decent deal for an investor, not a good deal, a Great deal
2. Can I pull it off?