All Forum Posts by: Rohan J.

I just had a tenant move out of one of the units in my duplexes (in Kansas City if that matters), and it looks like there is some repair work that needs to be done on the cabinets, paint, carpet, door handles, etc.

While I certainly will take care of those issues, I also want to use this opportunity to do things inside the rental that would increase rent.... but I'm not sure where my money would be best spent.

I would love to hear what BP thinks are the best things to focus on when trying to fix things that could cause a higher rent value in the tenants eyes? 

What's the order of importance usually? 

And do you use any specific material for certain items?

oops, didn't read that this was for last year . Hoping someone can provide some analysis for KCMO this year 

sad to see no love for Kansas City MO :(

Yes, multis usually require 25% down (vs 20% for single family homes).

Nice work! Serious question, why not sell this instead of renting it? If you purchased for ~60K with an ARV of $150K+, and it only rents for $900, this seems like a pretty clear sell? If the goal is cash flow, you can buy a better cash-flowing property with the profits.

Elijah Jay Dangerfield I don't buy in Los Angeles because there's no cash flow out here + down payments are insane. I primarily buy in Kansas City (MO) and Cle (OH). The property mentioned above was in KC. I agree with the poster above about buying a small multi as your first rental. A nice duplex for $85-$100k in a B- neighborhood in the Midwest is almost ideal, esp if you live in one side (You can live for free + get experience being a landlord).

Biggest mistake I made initially was buying a home for 130k - it's a good home but there's only a small pool of tenants who can afford the rent I'm looking for. If you're thinking of buying a rental for cash flow purposes, please don't spend more than 80-90k on you first single family home - I promise you will cash flow much better and have a much larger group of (perfectly fine) tenants to choose from. I also don't recommend buying a home for less than 50-60k, as that will just cause too much tenant drama/repair headaches. Also, no properties above 75 years old.

Cleveland is great, but one caveat I would add for people thinking of investing in CLE: please, please take a hard look at the property tax when analyzing expenses. Most of the areas worth investing in have insanely high property taxes - I just want to make sure people don't forget to overlook it... otherwise, totally agree that it's a great market.

This is a horrible investment. Even using 40% of expenses, the most I would pay for this is 187,500. And that's top of range... I would only go for it if I could get it for like 165k.

For me personally, anything above a 12% cap in a C+ or B- neighborhood is worth looking into further.