All Forum Posts by: Benny Ng

Thank you all for the information. It has really cleared that up for me. I'll make my next step by diving deeper into per-property basis expenses for my analysis!

@Ned Carey I see, that makes sense. It sounds like my next step would be to start itemizing these capital expenses. I was getting worried that my quick calculations would make some of these properties in the higher-tax area seem more profitable than comparable ones in lower-tax areas.

Do you typically calculate similar capital expenses from comparable units, even if the age of the items differ? 

Do you calculate it to hit the replacement date on the item, like in your water heater example?

My goal is to purchase a multi-family and owner-occupy one unit. This will be my first home purchase. I've been using the 50% rule up until now to get an idea of what the CoCR would be, but I'm seeing some huge differences in property taxes zipcode to zipcode. E.g., one lists ~$6k for property taxes, while another lists ~$2k. That comes out to ~$300/mo difference in monthly operating expenses. How do I account for that?

I think the 50% rule is supposed to take property taxes already from some other posts I've seen (https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/163...). I figured I could just do a breakdown on per property on items such as property tax, property management (10%), vacancy rate (based on city averages). 

I'm getting stuck on how to estimate capital expenses though. One approach I was considering is taking the full cost for replacing the furnace, roof, etc. and calculate a monthly cost. 

Is there another way I could estimate this? Is this worth the time?