Steps taken in order to analyze deals!

[Aaron Ramos]

Hey guys,

Preparing to purchase my first cash flowing rental property this year and hopefully many more to come throughout the next 12 months. I am more interested in multi-family homes and have started to analyze deals from Zillow.com, Realtor.com, Craigslist etc... most listings have a general idea of the numbers on a property to where you can punch into the BP Calculator to see how good a deal might be.

My question is how do some of you guys gather info to reinforce your numbers when analyzing a deal? How do you get a better idea what your property tax may be, your home insurance costs and a good idea of what the properties in that area are renting for prior to getting with your realtor or property managers? Or is mostly things you should depend on such a realtor or prop manager to help with?

[Geordy Rostad]

@Aaron Ramos

For property taxes, typically Zillow has a link to the actual county website where you'll be able to find the accurate tax number. Just scroll down the page and look under "tax history". At the bottom of that section there is usually a link to the county site.

For rent comping, I use three different things: Rentometer.com, craigslist, and hotpads. I need to also remember to use Zillow for this but I haven't been... I pay for rentometer. I think it's a great tool. It's not always accurate though so be aware it tends to comp some stuff too high.

For insurance, call your agent and get some different quotes to work from. Make sure you know if you are in a flood zone or not because that will change your insurance costs drastically