Any tips on budgeting Cap Ex and repairs on a Multifamily?

[Frank Manning]

I am seeing two 12 unit Multifamilies in Milwaukee WI this weekend. I’ve run the numbers a bunch and am having trouble coming up with a good number to budget for cap ex and repairs. For Capex I have an estimate for what the roof, water heaters, interiors, etc will cost over the next 15 years. I’ve then divided that into monthly payments. Is this a good way of analyzing it? For repairs, I’ve done it on a per door basis and have budgeted $100/door/month. That one I’m a little less sure of. Units rent for between 550-750 and the property is in decent shape (C class). Any advice on how I should be thinking about or calculating these costs would be greatly appreciated!

[Andrew Millard]

Standard figure out average life of each item, cost divided by useful life to figure out cost per month. Roof in Milwaukee on a 4/12 pitch simple apartment should run $2.5-3.75 a sqft. 100/mo/door seems a little high for maintenance but that all depends on how you run things and classify what’s maintenance and what’s capex.