All Forum Posts by: Mitchell Cord Cantrell

@Ryan Cleary do it yourself. Contractors are Notorious at least in Phoenix about jacking up bids for rentals because they know that you need it done and the odds are extremely high that you can’t do it yourself so your hands are tied. It’s not about the “going rate” it’s about not getting ripped off and if that’s the going rate then you are getting ripped off. So get some elbow grease into it, learn a few things and save that money for bigger better investments until you find a contractor that isn’t trying to use your to by himself a something nice.

Sorry for the odd title and  description but it is hard to ask this question with few words.

I own a power washing business and I mostly wash walkways, sidewalks breezeways, etc and I have tried to get into doing jobs for the big apartment complexes here in Phoenix and I have gotten a few but not many. These places really do need a power washing because it is littered with gum, dirt, liquid stains and so on and really does make the places look terrible but these landlords will not budge on getting it done but will happily spend a a couple thousand a month on landscapers to trim bushes and cut the grass every week. So I guess my question is, why do you spend thousands on keeping the property nice with landscaping but then let it look like crap in areas that everyone not only sees but has to walk on?

I was given a piece of advice that really makes sense to me but I thought I would get some other opinions on the idea.

The advice is that if you are going to buy any form of real estate to rent out you should, at the bare minimum, be getting twice the amount a month in rent than what it costs you to own and operate it or don’t buy it. 

So I guess my question is; is this a good foundation to go by and if not then what would be a good ratio?