What costs do you evaluate to ensure that the property is profitable?

[Estrella Carolina Mckinney]

I evaluate taxes, service fees, maintenance costs and other expenses to ensure that the property is profitable.

Which ones do you take into account?

[Ke Nan Wang]

This is from the NE Florida market. For my own new constructions, the cost is pretty simple: Property tax, insurance premium, property management, then depend on how we marketed the property, if we marketed it as a premium property, we would take care of the lawn service and pest control. If we marketed it as a value property, then the tenant took care of lawn and pest control. New construction shouldn't have any maintenance at all. Other than that, the rest would be debt services depend on how we financed the deal. 

For older houses, we would plan for capital expenses and they can add up quickly so depend on the age of roof, major appliances and HVAC, water heater, etc. When were those items replaced? Do we need to upgrade electrical/plumbing? Without major capital expenses, we were budgeting about $150 per month per unit for routine maintenance services. 

Vacancy and turnover cost that should be 8% of gross rent and this in our market is average. We have always done better than the average with our properties and services. 

So far we have been good with using those expenses for our analysis.