Recent sold deal in Cleveland (long distance)

[Caleb Heimsoth]

I just sold one of my rental properties about 3 weeks ago and wanted to do a brief write up about the process and the deal. I’m in my mid twenties and joined BP over 2 years ago. Since then it’s been a wealth of information and this deal is a perfect example of that.

I acquired this property in September 2017 using a real estate agent I found on BP. It was an interesting property as it's a 2 bed, 1 bath half-duplex (one side of the duplex). It's on the west side of Cleveland. I visited Cleveland once, but never saw this property in person. Buying sight unseen, isn't for everyone but it can work if you know what you're doing. I paid 35k for it, and rent was 750 when I got it. With down payment and closing costs it cost me 11.5k to buy it. The inherited tenants moved out 6 months later, I did about a 5k basic "rehab". This included paint, floors, new fridge, clean up, sealing basement mostly. The rent I collected during my approximate 14 months of ownership basically covered the rehab and other minor maintenance things I had come up. I sold this property for 46k and netted 14k after all expenses, so roughly speaking it was a 22 percent CoC return or 18 percent annualized. I probably could have made more money if I held it longer but circumstances changed and I wanted to sell sooner. This was a C class neighborhood. Not a home run of a deal, but not bad either. I learned a ton. I'm now applying a lot of what I learned to buy multifamily closer to where I live.