Purchased our 1st place a little buyers anxiety with a couple ?'s

[Matthew Stallone]

After doing some research and saving up for a little bit we decided to purchase our first place. We live on Long Island so it didn't make much sense to invest here. Taxes and properties are crazy high as well as not the most landlord friendly area. We have some friends down in the Raleigh, NC area and really love it down there. We looked at a bunch of homes this past week then made a bid on a townhome and it was just accepted.

Paid 157k for a 3br 2.5 bath in a highly sought out neighborhood with the best school district in the state. 

hoa fees are $98 a month and the home is move in ready with all new appliances.

It looks like we can get around $1300 for rent. 

Probably not the most amazing deal out there, but I think it's a somewhat safe bet for getting our feet wet. We are most likely going to use a management company as well as have them acquire new tenants. Once we tack that on it definitely eats away at our profit. Is it worth it to try and handle all of this ourselves or at least try and rent it ourselves to save the realtor fees for tenant acquisition?

How did we do?

Also, the average time to have one of these rented is 18 days in the neighborhood. Let me know if you guys need any other info, I'm just trying to ease some 1st time buyers anxiety.

[Paul Ronto]

I think you did alright. If you put 20% down with rates at about 4% today, you're looking at around $600/mo for principal and interest, insurance on a condo is usually cheap, not sure what you are paying, but probably like $200/year, and then if taxes in Raliegh are about 1% which is probably a little high, that's another $1500/year, so you're looking at about $840 in monthly expenses on the high side of these simple calculations, so if you can get $1300 you'd be cash flowing $460/mo. Plus Raleigh is a good medium sized city so appreciation is probably in the mid-single digits. I'd say you did pretty good on your first investment.

Now it's time to get it rented! Remember you can kill your profits with bad tenants and high turnover, so spending the time to vet tenants properly and find good tenants is going to be key. Be sure to have a solid rental application and lease, as well as screening and acceptance criteria. Also, always do proper screening complete with credit, criminal and eviction reports on your potential renters.  

Good luck! Let me know if you have any landlord specific questions, happy to help. Feel free to direct message me if you'd like.