All Forum Posts by: Ben Smalley

Cleveland has a great rent to price ratio. Just make sure you have an agent / PM who is local because Cleveland has a lot of bad areas that look great on paper but will be a money pit in reality. 

In general Lorain is rough. Comparable to East Cleveland (rough). Resale I would say do not count on any appreciation at this point and may even devalue as time goes on. Rents are low. For 1 bedroom apartments we were seeing $475-500 per month. Not sure about SFHs but should be higher than that but probably not much more. 

Hey Greg, 

Investors seem to be pouring in to Cleveland right now driving prices up and returns down. Having said that you can still find decent returns but you will pay a premium right now for 2-4 units. We can  offer buy-side assistance and property management and work with a lot of out of state investors. Send me a message if you'd like to chat.

I am not an expert but do not believe you can submeter the water like you can electric but if you can just be sure on the investment cost and payback period. May not be worth it. I looked into getting a building separately metered and it wasn't worth it. 

Cleveland Heights is a solid rental area. Stay south of Mayfield road in my opinion. Also be aware that in addition to higher taxes they have POS inspections when you buy and sell (and they will ding something) as well as rental registration fees and out of state owner fees. Lots of red tape with them but generally worth it.

It really depends on the city. Cleveland Water is everywhere but has different rates depending on the suburb. Other cities like Cleveland Heights have a separate water charge. Some cities include trash and sewer, others they are separate bills (and usually more).

Would be helpful to know which city you are looking at e.g. Euclid, Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Bedford, etc. Additionally these cities have rental registration fees you need to add to your numbers.

I started investing by purchasing a duplex in Cleveland as well. Now own 16 units and manage more for clients. Duplexes are better and will outperform. What's nice is at 50% occupancy you are still covering PITI and when the second one rents it's almost all profit.

In Ohio duplexes there tends to be a single water meter so you will incur the water charge vs. a SFH where you can pass along all the utilities but overall duplex is the way to go. Good luck!

I have about 30% of my tenants on Section 8 and they are great. You still need to do your due diligence on them like any other applicant but they are some of my best tenants and when a tenant loses his or her job the rent is still paid. 

Only drawbacks I have found are annual inspections which can be a headache and if the tenant does not comply with the Section 8 rules they can pull the subsidy at any time leaving the tenant to pay the entire rent amount. For this I put in the lease agreement that if the payout amount changes the lease is considered voided.

Not sure on cost as we have no pursued it. You will have to do a lot of repiping. We did just 2 water lines on one bathroom at one of our properties and it was $750. Take that plus other fixtures in the building + the cost of the meter and it the payback would be >3 years so it seems like a no go. 

Sadly the best way around this is purchasing larger buildings. I have a 6 unit building that has comparable water usage to some duplexes! 

I will second what others have said. Euclid is a great rental market and if things are priced right they are rented in 2 weeks to a qualified tenant. 

I will add though that the City of Euclid can be annoying to deal with as they have Point of Sale inspections, annual rental inspections, and high fees and taxes.