First time landlording help

[Joel Betances]

Hello Bp Community,

Im in my 5th year of real estate investing in Pennsylvania. I have 3 homes managed by a property manager. As I was priced out of the area, I decided to look at other towns in Pennsylvania.

I bought a home in late October in Luzerne County for $83,500 and decided to manage on my own for the first time. I put $6000 into repairs, mostly paint, new light fixtures, new appliances, painting cabinets and fix a small leak coming from the roof. Took about 2 weeks to get the property rent ready. My issue is, it's been almost 3 months and I haven't be able to get good tenant applicants. The majority have evictions on their record, don't make enough income or have a lot of debt under their name.

Comparing other rentals on Zillow, my asking rent is $1100 while other properties are trying to rent at $1200. My properties also look a lot better than the other homes. Most of these properties have been sitting on the market for 30+ days.

Other possible issues is the hot air furnace is very old. It works but it was installed in 1967 so I need to prepare to replace it when it fails at some point. I have 3 windows as well that don't stay in the open position that I have to replace. I also have a mortgage on this property paying $683 a month.

Now I'm deciding should I continue waiting for a possible tenant or should I just sell the property. Comps in the last 30 days sold between 90,000-100,000.

Any advice on what you guys think would be the best thing to do?

[Robert Young]

Quote from @Joel Betances:

Quote from @Robert Young:

This tends to be a very slow time of year to get tenants.  People don't really move around the holidays.  I rarely have luck getting tenants in Dec/Jan.   

Why did you decide to self-manage this time instead of giving it to your property manager?  They tend to have more resources at their disposal for finding and getting tenants.  Also, is your ad making it very clear that evictions are not accepted?

I personally would fix the 3 windows and maybe consider cutting the rent a little more to gather more interest.  What town are you in?

Is a different town from where i have the other properties. About 1.5 hours away from each other. The town is called Plymouth.

 I have a property currently in Plymouth and have had others in the past.  You will go through a lot of bad potential renters before you find a good one.  And believe me, you want to wait for the good one because the bad ones will trash your place.  I would recommend getting a property manager there because you want someone who can keep an eye on your place for you.