All Forum Posts by: Amrit Saboo

@ Redney, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. You are absolutely right about knowing the details about HOA. I got the copy of the HOA documents and went through it. I will definitely look into attending board meetings. Its been two years and I have not faced any issues yet.

I did consider vacancy, capex, operational expenses while calculating the cash flow. I have been managing the property for 2 years now and have been able to manage it successfully. However, a lesson learnt is that once we increase the portfolio, it may not be tenable to continue managing the properties. 

@Angel G. thank you so much. Wish you all the best in your search. 

I am a newbie investor from NJ. I set my goal in 2020 to have 2 doors. I did achieve the goal, but I took the risk of moving forward with condos instead of SFR or multi-family. With full time W2 job, I wanted to invest in a good neighborhood and reduce the maintenance as much as I can. Keeping a property manager would have significantly reduced my cash flow. So I wanted to buy the properties within 30 minutes drive. Here are the details.

Property 1: 2 bed 2 bath condo - Closed Jan 30th 2020

Purchase price: $198K (no repairs) ; 25% down

Rent: $1750 (got rented on Feb 13th 2020)

Cash Flow: about $400 (after mortgage, escrow, HOA). Last condo sold in the community at $230K..so building some equity there.

This last year, fortunately didnt have any maintenance calls/repair. So the cash flow from this year helped me to fund the maintenance reserve for future. This is in a great neighborhood with good school district. 

Property 2: 2 bed 1 bath condo - Closed Dec 9th 2020.

Purchase price: $169K ; 25% down 

Repair: $7K (no repair as such but went towards upgrading the house with new granite countertop, backsplash tiles, new bathrooms, carpet, etc)

Rent: $1600-$1650 (finalizing the tenant and with lease start date Feb 1st). 

Cash Flow: about $350 (after mortgage, escrow, HOA, vacancy). The last condo sold in the community at $190K.

As of now things looking good. But back of my mind I am always thinking about all the forums I have read here talking about being cautious with condos. Now I am looking for SFR/multifamily so I can diversify my portfolio.