All Forum Posts by: Christopher Alley

So I've been running the numbers on properties in my local area of central Maine.  We get cold winters up here, I mean COLD!... and it seems that the variable cost of heating in the winter is chewing up the potential profits of most multi family properties on the market, so originally my plan was to invest and hold onto small two or three unit multi family properties, but now it seems like small single family homes, I'm thinking ranch style, are maybe better because it's not expected for me to pay any portion of heat, and if the property is on the smaller side it would be easy for the tenant to heat. Thoughts?

Alright folks I'm rather new here and I was looking locally( Maine) for a small multi unit and found one that looked sold, Older but typical for my area, after I evaluated the " financial sheet" provided by the realtor, it broke down to only 27 bucks a month profit total. It's a two unit for sale at 116,000 the rents are 945 and 845 for a total of 1790 despite being described as " nearly 1900 in rents per month" The expenses broke down as follows heat, that I think is high at 4018 per year or 334 per month, taxes 235 water 34 insurance 62, maintenance 175 mortgage 564 property management 179 capex 90 and vacancy 90 for a total in expenses of 1763 dollars per month???? Can this be correct? 27 dollars profit for this property? 

Hello everyone, This is my first post here, looking forward to hearing from everyone. I have started to read " The book on rental property investing" and I have a few questions. So far my my strategy is going to be to stick pretty much to " plan 2 " in the book, but modify it slightly and use small multi family properties instead of single family homes. My first questions is, right now I have only about 5,000 in savings total that could go toward a down payment, but that would be everything, should I work my butt off at my job and increase my savings or should I consider using the equity I have in my current home that I would estimate would total around 20,000. In my current job I could pull in about 200 extra dollars a week overtime but which would be more effective? I have a brother that has been showing interest in properties as well should I consider going in as partners and splitting the cost of the down payments? Also I'm considering starting an LLC for my investments, thoughts?