All Forum Posts by: Brendan L.

I'm trying to buy my first duplex. I have one under contract, and I'm trying to determine the initial repair costs.

I need to decide between keeping the slate roof and repairing year to year, or just replacing. I'm looking at up to 5k in other structural deferred maintenance, and I would like to dump 10-20k into improvements to raise rents. So maybe up to 30k-35k up front.

So if I invest all this money up front, I won't make it back until 3-5 years in. Keep in mind, I expect these investments to be strictly for cashflow, not for appreciation in my area.

Would that be concerning to you as a real estate investor? A concern I have is, what if it doesn't work out and I have to sell before I make that money back? I guess I just have to hold on to it for a while to reap the benefits of initial capex repairs and cosmetic improvements..

Alright, cool- thank you

Is it standard for a bank and their agent to just not respond to an offer? I know they got multiple offers on a foreclosure and I was supposed to hear something back yesterday, but nothing. I thought my offer was pretty competitive, too.

@Michael Seeker Interesting. Its actually in Williamstown, which, rentometer will still ballpark low because it bases rents on North Adams, which is much lower demand than Williamstown due to the private college and superior school system in town. Speaking with my agent, she thought 1200 was safe, 1300 would have to be really nice, like you say. A colleague rents a 3bed for 1250, and craigslist confirms the low rental stock and 1200-1300 would be a nice in between of the luxury apts and the lower places. A poor quality 2 bedroom is currently almost 900, a nice 2 bedroom is 1100. So, I'll be somewhere in there. 

I'm a little worried, though because I had to be very competitive against the cash offers, so I may have overshot my offer by a little, which leaves me less room to get the place up and running at or under the assessed value (my goal) to avoid negative equity. Although, because my goal was renting long term, I backwards planned from the rents, which gives me about 30-40k above that to play with. My issue is, I don't really know the extent to which electrical, HVAC, and energy efficiency will need attention- it looked pretty good to me, but its been sitting for 5 years, so I'll find out after an inspection.

@Ted Woolley @Michael Seeker Any suggestions on who to get cheap cabinet doors from? Not seeing much on craigslist or ebay. Ikea looks like 80-90 per door

@Ted Woolley Brilliant, would save me a ton of work and cost much less than full replacement

Rental, duplex, families, 3 bed/1 bath, ~$1200/mo

I think I can make use of these cabinets and counters. My thought is to just paint the laminate cabinets and add hardware and strip, sand, stain, and reseal the counters. Pretty good sized project, worth the savings I would imagine. Thoughts about that? How about color recommendations- I was thinking maybe just keep the white and paint the wood accents on the cabinets.

BRRRR sounds great! But how can I tell if my local rent market can bare a certain level of rent increase? If I update a building, how will I know people will be willing to spend a higher amount of money on rent for "bells and whistles"?

Example: A town's median income is 40k with a population of 8500, and sees moderate to low levels of seasonal tourism. So the average person can afford 1k/mo in rent. Average rent for a 2 bedroom is between $650 and $700. How could I figure out if there would be demand for nicer, $800-$900 2 bedroom rentals? Are there rules of thumb to determine just how much to dump into renovation? 

@Cosmo Iannopollo Interesting, I'll think about that, thanks. The thought behind the duplex would be to finish the attic (hopefully) to get 4 bedrooms in there and bank on families wanting to rent. It would make sense to just do that same thing with a SFH which I'm guessing would be more desirable to a family than a duplex.

Its a bit of a gamble with this market out here, for sure. Questionable if the risk is matched by the reward.