All Forum Posts by: Jered Sturm

Hey @Elmo Duverge Welcome to the site. I found it a few years ago also through the podcast. I think you're making a wise choice in multifamily and your skills in HVAC will be a huge asset to leverage as you have eluded to. 

Best of luck on your journey. Let me know if I can be of help.

@Andy Cason, I am not "fee-based" because I won't charge you anything, but if you have questions on buy and hold I have quite a bit of experience in that strategy and how to  utilize it efficiently in different situations. Feel free to email me or private message me and I be happy to try to help.   Also, I live in NW GA if you ever were in the area and wanted grab coffee.

@Marcus Williams Glad you decided to post! Have you considered getting your own license? I think (just a hunch) currently deals are hard to find and typically takes experience and creativity to meet the needs of investors.The agents know the on market deals they will be able to assist in only sell at retail these days and simply don't have the margin investors need. Becuase of this they have decided their time to represent investors at this point in the market cycle is just not reaping an adequate return on their time. With retail houses selling 1-2 days on market they are better shifting their time to serve the retail buyer. 

Noticing these types of shifts in the free market is how the sophisticated investors are able to make their best guess at where we are in the cycles. 

This is not to say it can't be done. It's just not worth the agents time these days for the types of deals they can help you on. 

My opinion is in the current market deals can not just be purchased, they have to created through creativity. Unfortunately that creatively often only comes from real experience.

There is ALWAYS a way to make it happen. Just use this info to fuel your thought process and get creative.

Best of luck on the journey!

@Manuel Prado I have not used them personally but I talk to many people who want to utilize retirement account wealth to invest in RE and the name Equity Trust tends to come up a lot. Might want to dig into them as well.  Good luck 

Thank you Everyone! @Brian Burke you seem to understand exactly where my head is in this idea. Cash flow is only a very small factor in this decision.  We have a planned refinance coming in 18 months as long as the market cooperates and I'm looking at creative ideas to boost that refi. 

To@Chris Fennimore  point I think my challenge will be that I have too many meters serving not enough electric demand.  If I had one meter that served all common areas for the entire complex I would only need one system. Since my complex is broken up I have separate house meters for each building's common areas only serving a fraction of the complex and would require several separate systems. I will have to see. 

Attached is a very rough financial estimate on the system the solar company suggested. Since I received this I have sent them actually utility bills for them to produce a financial analysis based on actuals. I will post that once I have it for others to take a look. For now here is the rough estimate. 

@Kelli Hatch I try to avoid them. That doesn't mean I wouldn't buy them, but currently, our entire portfolio all utilities are submetered even on our 42 unit. 

I would disagree with Austin on this one I think you have to take into account the future projections of utility costs as well. The majority of our portfolio is in Cincinnati Ohio. I have attached a graph of the water cost in Cincinnati over the past 30 years. This increase in water costs will only make sub metered buildings more and more in demand and non-submetered less and less this means cap rates will compress for submetered in comparison to increasing for non-submetered. You can say you will just bill back to the residents, but that's not always feasible in some markets and we know that total water consumption decreases 30+% when residents are responsible for actual amount used not just a fixed bill back. This means less cost on the owner but not as much financial burden on the resident. 

Good luck in your search!

@Deron Barnes Cincinnati is hard for out of state investors. At the address, you listed I would say it is very hard!

@Melissa N.  Congrats on the 12 unit! You'll have to PM on it I'd love to hear what you decided on. 

@Paul Lachaud & @Phil TingCincinnati can be a great market. Management companies are lacking so local investors seem to excel over out of state investors ( I am from Cincy) and hold the majority of my portfolio there. 

I am in the infancy phase of even exploring this idea, but was curious to see if any other apartment operators have looked into installing solar panels on their buildings to reduce utility expenses? 

My gut says there is no way it makes sense from a straight cash flow basis. My thought was more so when factoring in tax benefits as well increased NOI and therefore value that can be captured through an already planned refinance I may be able to make sense of it financially.

The complex in consideration is made up of several 12 unit buildings. All of them get full day direct sunlight. They are asphalt shingled gable roofs. Currently, the only utilities we are responsible for are the common areas including the laundry rooms. I have already gone in and done LED upgrading. So in all our electric consumption is  relatively low. I have heard if you can produce more energy from the solar than you use it will spin the meters backward and you can receive a payment from the energy company. 

Before I spend hours researching I thought I'd see if anyone else has executed, or explored the same. 

This is strictly for apartment complexes where value is based on income not considering this for smaller property.

@Foma Okosi BP is a great place to be. I think they have resources for agents who represent or what to represent investors. Best of luck in your business!