All Forum Posts by: Peter Korty

Hi BP Community,

I'm a total newbie to real estate investment game and I've been analyzing a few deals. My question is, what do you all including as a CapEx in your deal analysis?

CapEx should include everything that has a lifespan right? So for example, according to Google, a dishwasher has a lifespan of about 10 years, a garbage disposal is about 8 years, and an air conditioner is about 12 years.

Sticking with the dishwasher example from above, at my local big box store, the mid range model of dishwasher is about $600 dollars. So $600/10 years/12 months = $5 per month of CapEx for the dishwasher. I did this with everything in my personal residence that has a lifespan and came up with about $150 per month of CapEx.

Since I'm totally new to this, I conservatively estimate that I can get $600 per month in rent, so 25% of my rent is a CapEx. When I entered this into the BP buy and hold calculator, it actually gave me a warning that it should be a percentage of the monthly rent instead of the monthly amount.

What are your thoughts? Does this sound about right?

Thanks for the help,

Pete

Thanks for the warm welcomes everyone! 

@Craig Curelop,  I took a little bit of your advice and binged listened to the Rookie podcast and added the BiggerPockets Money and Business podcasts to my list. I'm already on episode 19 of the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast! Such incredibly good information! 

Thanks for the help, 

Pete

Hi BP Community,

I'm a brand new investor near the Lafayette Indiana area. I'm a test development engineer and I really enjoy solving any kind of problem, working with my hands, and building things. I'm actually working on a web scraping script to pull all the key information from the MLS so I can increase my speed at property analysis. I just want to be helpful.

My main goal with real estate investing is to create a secondary income so that I can afford to purchase my family's farm. My second goal is to spend more time with my family (and my dog Elsa).

I'm super new to this, so don't be surprised if I ask some really basic questions, like if REA means Real Estate Association(?). Right now I'm mainly just focusing on education. I've been immersing myself in the BP Podcasts, which have been incredibly educational! One of the most influential quotes I've ever heard for getting started is "anything worth doing, is worth doing badly." Meaning anything worth doing is worth making yourself look foolish at first, but to always keep striving for perfection (or in engineering good enough).

One thing that really scares me about real estate investing is that it's a people business. Like most engineers, I'm quite introverted and therefore my interpersonal skills are not the greatest. Technical/not so technical skills I've got. Communication skills, not so much. That's why I'm working with my cousin who is a realtor and my brother-in-law who was a property manger for years. Both of which are natural born people magnets. Hopefully together we can build a great investment team!

Thanks for the help,

Pete