Stabilizing a “C” neighborhood SFR: Curious how long for others.

Akron, Ohio
General Real Estate Investing
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Stabilizing a “C” neighborhood SFR: Curious how long for others.

Richard Schubert
Akron, OH · Member since 2024 · 101 posts · 78 votes

As the title says, curious how long others are seeing in their area to stabilize a SFR in a C neighborhood. A smaller SFR I purchased a year and a half ago took about 12 months to stabilize. It already had a tenant when purchased. It had some deferred maintenance and I put a new roof on and fixed a few things. The tenant used an online maintenance request system to request a handful of maintenance issues for the first 6 to 8 months. Once everything maintenance wise settled down, the house is now pretty much on autopilot and I don't really ever hear anything from the tenants. This is the point that in my mind the house has reached a balance point and is stable. This took about 8 months. It's now 18 months later and still have the same tenant.

Another house I recently purchased for cash is doing the same thing. I bought it with a tenant, had some deferred maintenance, and the tenant had been reporting maintenance issues as they come up. It has been 4 months and I still am fixing something each month, but slowly I can see the issues subside. I am thinking about 8 months on this house also to balance out and stabilize. At 12 to 18 months of aging, I may look to cash out on this one.

What are others seeing??

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  • Greg ScottPro Member
    Rental Property Investor · SE Michigan · Member since 2014 · 4k+ posts · 6k+ votes
    1y

    I never bough SFRs with tenants in them.  The rehab of the vacant was part of the business plan.  We fixed everything in the first 3-5 weeks, plus paint, carpet, landscaping, then rented it out. There were very few problems after that.

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  • Richard Schubert
    OP
    Akron, OH · Member since 2024 · 101 posts · 78 votes
    1y
    Quote from @Greg Scott:

    I never bough SFRs with tenants in them.  The rehab of the vacant was part of the business plan.  We fixed everything in the first 3-5 weeks, plus paint, carpet, landscaping, then rented it out. There were very few problems after that.

    I am fully rehabbing one currently and when finished I will rent it out. I don’t expect to have much maintenance with it for a while since most everything will be new. The other two in my post I picked up from OOS investors who had the same property manager as I do. The the transition was seamless and since I know the tenants already had to pass their screening process, I was not concerned about inheriting these tenants. The manager had all the maintenance records, so we knew going in that the previous owners had let them slip a bit. Price was pretty good for that reason.
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  • Drew SygitBusiness Member
    Property Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votes
    1y

    @Richard Schubert are you having these professionally inspected before you buy them?

    That should catch most of these issues.

    Some, you'll never know about until someone actually lives in the property. 

    What type of interview do you do with existing tenant(s) to ask them about maintenance issues?

    Using these, you should be able to get most maintenance issues addressed in less than 90 days.

    One other thing, different tenants prioritize different repairs. We've had a tenant move out with no maintenance issues requested for months, only to find many in our MoveOut process or when a new tenant moves in.

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  • Richard Schubert
    OP
    Akron, OH · Member since 2024 · 101 posts · 78 votes
    1y
    Quote from @Drew Sygit:

    @Richard Schubert are you having these professionally inspected before you buy them?

    That should catch most of these issues.

    Some, you'll never know about until someone actually lives in the property. 

    What type of interview do you do with existing tenant(s) to ask them about maintenance issues?

    Using these, you should be able to get most maintenance issues addressed in less than 90 days.

    One other thing, different tenants prioritize different repairs. We've had a tenant move out with no maintenance issues requested for months, only to find many in our MoveOut process or when a new tenant moves in.

    I inspect the homes myself. I have a in depth background in construction and tend to understand what quantifies as a major issue more then most. They did not have major issues, just the normal things that come up over time if everything is not new already. I speak with the tenants personally and they are usually happy to tell me all the issues. I can fix any issues we can see and know about right away, it’s the hidden ones that older homes just tend to appear. After a while they seem to work themselves out and get fixed. 
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