All Forum Posts by: Mark Hayes

How long should it take to find a tenant? My SFH in Northwest Arkansas was listed on all the major platforms (Zillow, Realtor, Facebook Marketplace, apartments.com, hotpads, etc...) in the last week in Jan 2024. It's now March, and still no tenant. I have thoroughly researched market rent in my area, and I've felt confident in the price up until recently. I tried reducing the rent by $25 a couple of weeks ago but I still don't have a tenant. There have been a few interested tenants, a couple of which I actually approved but then they ghosted me.

Now I'm starting to wonder if it's just seasonal or if there's something wrong with my property. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I own a 3bd/2ba SFH that is renting for $975 which is well below market rate. When we first start renting it out in 2017, this was the going rate, but since then the market rate has increased to about $1,200, possibly even higher. I have good tenants who have been living there for 2 years. I've never had any problems with them and they pay rent on time. Should I increase it all the way to market rate, or would it be best to do a phased approach? Say, $1,100 when their lease is up, and then $1,200 the next time around? I'd prefer not to lose the tenants but I also want to make sure the property continues have an acceptable level of return.

Thank you both for your comments. @Jaron Walling, are you assuming I don't use a property manager to come up with your ROI and cash flow numbers? I do plan to use a property manager so just wanted to get your opinion on whether that makes the deal look less desirable.

I'm a newbie looking to get started. I'm looking for a long-term buy and hold forever type of strategy. My goal is to acquire just enough A or B class properties with low maintenance, good quality tenants that I can eventually retire on the income.

The deal I'm looking at is an off-market duplex for $250k. I've made a couple of offers on it but the sellers won't budget on price. Here are some additional details.

Type: duplex

Price: $250,000

Down payment: 25%

Interest rate: 3.45%

Year built: 1994

Rent: $995 per unit (both are currently rented with a long term tenant of 4 yrs on one side)

Property management: 10%

Tax amount: $1,880

Insurance quote: $1,392

Condition: good, no renovations needed

Another thing to note, I compare real estate income to the safe withdrawal rate that I can expect from my stock/bond portfolio (which is about 3.5% after taxes), so the cap rate and cash on cash return don't have to be astronomically high in order for a real estate deal to work. I do, however, want it to at least be worth the extra hassle of dealing with tenants.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this property?