All Forum Posts by: Marc Santos

Quote from @Kathie Russell:

Absolutely fantastic property manager in the Charlotte market is Wilkinson Property Managment.  Truly top notch, professional management.  

https://www.wilkinsonpropertym...

 Thank you so much Kathie!  Calling them now.

Quote from @Stephanie Walker:

If you’re looking for long-term unfurnished, talk to @Maranda Tucker. She’s absolutely wonderful to work with!

I’m an investor-focused real estate broker/firm owner and own/manage midterm and short term furnished rentals in the Charlotte area. I would love to assist you in that space if you wanted to go that route!

 Thank you Stephanie!  I just reached out to her via BP

Any recommendations for mid-sized multi family (12-50 units) property managers?  I'll be acquiring at least 50 units in the Charlotte area in 2023.  

Using standard postage (rather than 1st class) can reduce your costs significantly. Post office states a 3-30 day delivery window I find most of these land around day 10 after mailing. There are standard postage sticky stamps which still give your mailing that authentic feel and look.

Like your ideas. I would add one thing...offer the tenant some moving assistance if they decide to move out. In other words contact a local rental focused realtor and let them know about the opportunity for them to pick up some business. You can also outline the current situation for them. Have the realtor start looking for apartments close to the current rental rates they are pAying with you. Inform the tenant that the services of the realtor come at no cost to them. That goodwill will go a long way with your current tenants and limit their animosity toward you for raising rents. You might also offer some financial bonus for the tenant when they move out if they leave your place in good condition and remove all their belongings. This is sort of a twist on "cash for keys."

I typically plan for 5-10% vacancy but you may be able to find some data specific to your market. Also, are these units metered separately for water? It's customary here in RI for landlords to pay water mostly due to the fact that most multi unit buildings only have one water meter. Also, if you're paying $1200 per month in Piti then you're already at $14,400, add in some vacancy ($1,200) and that already brings you down to max potential cash flow of $8400. Trust me, you will spend some money on repairs and maintenance of you truly track those costs. A good rule of them is anywhere between 4-12% of gross rents. Even if you plan on 4% this still another $1000 approx. finally, don't underestimate the cost of turnover (in my opinion the most costly expense). Paint, new carpets, a few random repairs, pay a realtor to rent it for you, change locks, key copies, paying utilities while vacant, cleaning, etc etc etc can easily add up to $1000s of dollars.

Hi Nate What are your taxes, insurance, any utility bills, repairs account for at least 5% of gross rents, vacancy, landscaping. I've found that expenses almost always run right around 50% of gross rents. Don't fool yourself by thinking there will be little to no repairs because it's recently been renovated. Good luck!!

For a 6-family building in Providence, RI I'm paying 3.4% of purchase price in property taxes annually.  18% of my annual gross rents (before accounting for vacancy and other losses) go toward property taxes.  It's brutal here. 

Thanks for all the perspective everyone.  Brandon, I agree, RI and Providence in particular are grossly mismanaged but it seems the Providence landlord association has made some progress recently and hope to continue that trend.  I'll be at the meeting this Wednesday night.  Will you be there?

Thank you Harriet for all the detail as well.  Very informative. 

Looking to get some nationwide perspective. I'm in the Providence, RI market and feel as though our property taxes are significantly higher than the national average. I'm dealing with larger multi family buildings (6 or more units) which Providence classifies as "commercial." I thought it might be a good exercise to measure annual real estate tax as a percentage of annual gross rents. For example, I pay $9000 per year for taxes and my annual gross rents (before adjusting for vacancy and other losses) is $50,000. My percentage of taxes when measured against gross rents is $9,000/$50,000 or 18%. Let me know what you're seeing and if you know of any data which assesses this nationally. I'd like to use this data to contest tax rates with the city. Thank you.