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

[Richard Schubert]

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??

[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.