multi famiy underwriting techniques

[Robby Sanchez]

Hey everyone, me again, I am practicing underwriting MF deals and came up with a few questions (I am sure there will be more). 

-when figuring rules of thumb regarding payroll cost per employee/position or things like repairs and maintenance cost, contract services, etc. per door in a specific market do yall suggest contacting a property manager to find out these numbers or actually using google or job listings etc. i thought about using chat GPT as well. any thoughts on this? I realize that these numbers change depending on size of the property, position type etc. as well as every market is different and fluctuates. just trying to get some general advice on this. TIA 

[Calvin Graves]

Is the assumption here that it's owner-managed and the owner is hiring help?

Otherwise, if you're assuming third party management, then maintenance is either baked into their fee or charged hourly like a vendor. 

Remember the purpose of a proforma is to determine if a deal pencils broadly, so getting extremely granular doesn't add anything useful. If hourly vendor vs salaried maintenance is what makes or breaks the deal...it's not a good deal.

Your best estimates are likely to be from managers/owners of buildings similar to your subject property. Ask if they had X, Y, or Z work done in the last 12 months, how much it cost, and who did the work. And if you're talking about very large properties, you can probably find $/SF stats by market.