All Forum Posts by: Rob Gribben

Do Craigslist, and re-post often to get your ad toward the top of the board. It gets to be a hassle, but once you are too far down the list, nobody sees your ad.  Hang tight, sure you'll find tenants if it's priced correctly for the market.

@Matthew Loring,

Thanks for responding, all good and relevant points.  My house in the city was built in 1900, so an old house, though fully renovated.  My house in the city was built in 1951, and also fully renovated.  

I consider all costs, except for taxes and insurance, in order to comply with local registration requirements and to keep a property in a good market condition for the area, to keep your property competitive with others.  For example, included in my numbers are replacement of an AC unit and roof in the county side house, and replacement of kitchen counters in the city side house.  The city side house is in Canton, and I replaced Formica counters with granite when the existing tenants of 4 years moved out. In order to keep pace with other rentals and get what I consider "market rent" for the area, that was a necessity.  All of the annual property and lead renewal/registration costs are included as well.  The county side house was purchased as a foreclosure, and I made about $7k of repairs/upgrades prior to renting it out (those costs are not included in my annual cost numbers, as I consider those up front costs to make property "rental ready").  The roof and AC replacement were done about 3 years after tenant moved in.  I expect in cases of foreclosed properties, costs such as roof and AC replacement may come up sooner rather than later.      

Tenant, per the lease agreement.  I think it's more than reasonable to expect a tenant to replace batteries as needed.  As a landlord, I replace them between tenants, and then explain to my tenants that they are responsible for replacing smoke alarm and CO alarm batteries as needed.

I have two rental properties in Baltimore, both are rowhomes, one in the city, and one in the county.  I was looking at rental expenses (excluding taxes and insurance) for the past 4 years (2011-2014) on both houses to try and compile some useful data on estimated maintenance costs per year.  Interestingly enough, the 4 year cost for one was $6,202 and for the other $6,252, so between the two houses, the average cost per year is $1,557/year. 

I was wondering if others have any useful data to share. I would say minimum of 4 years of data is needed in order to estimate what one can expect to pay as an "annual" cost for rental expenses. I plan to hold properties for at least 10 years after purchase, so I project ROI based on holding the property for 10 years. Obviously, a huge variable in the projection is the maintenance/rental expenses.

I look at estimated NPV of the return and ROI at a 10 year projection. In order to realize a decent ROI, I feel like you have to have good cash flow, so they kind of go hand in hand. I may be willing to sacrifice cash flow if I feel like a property has significant upside appreciation potential, but for the most part good cash flow = good ROI.

Yes, farming out the property mgmt typically costs you a months rent to place tenants, and about 10% of the rent on a monthly basis to manage.  Personally, I wouldn't do the deal unless I anticipated significant appreciation in property values, and them maybe worth the risk as cash flow is pretty minimal.  I'd have to either get a lower price on the property, or a prospect for higher rent than $1,200 if the annual taxes are $5,500.  

I ran the numbers on my own calculator, and returns are slim unless you are doing all of the tenant placement and mgmt yourself.  Taxes at $5,500/year really eats up profit if you are only get in the $1,200 range for rent.  Personally, I think there's better deals elsewhere, not enough margin for the risk IMO.  

I would try to negotiate to keep part of the deposit, you stopped advertising, so she certainly has some responsibility.  She's probably bluffing about moving in, and if she's lost her job then you don't want her to anyway.  Did you give her a deposit receipt, does it state the deposit in non-refundable?  If you think you can rent it to someone else quickly, then I probably wouldn't push her too hard, not worth the headaches, just try to negotiate what you can, and move on.

Screening, www.clearsceening.com.  You setup your criteria for your properties, and they handle the rest and send you a recommendation to accept or decline, based on the criteria you've setup for your properties.  

I would approve, wouldn't ask parents to get involved.  They're 24 and gainfully employed, a pretty good find from my perspective.