How do you get top rents for DSCR financed BRRRR properties?

[Marcus Auerbach]

In the last years, the rent amount on a BRRRR property has become the defining factor for the loan amount. It used to be mostly LTV and appraisal, now it's the 1.2 DSCR, so in that way rent is becoming the limiting factor. What really took me by surprise was that one of my go-to lenders here in Milwaukee is using my portfolio expense ratio (!) to determine NOI on a brand-new rehabbed single-family property that should not have any operating expenses.

The problem is of course that we have always reinvested a large portion of our cash flow into systematically improving our assets, so I show a substantial % for repairs and maintenance on our P&L. We also don't push rents to the absolute max and rather optimize towards finding really great tenants that stay long term. 

That's why we also choose high-end finishes to get great tenants and top rents - here is a walk-through video on some of the things we typically do. This is a property I bought 7 years ago and back then we did not do the same level rehabs as we do today.

Do you run into the same issue? How do you navigate it?