Make sure you get good quotes on snow removal.

Sellers will make their properties look very good in an attempt to pull one over on a potential buyer.Remember to include PITI, snow removal, landscaping, property management along with estimated annual maintenance costs (will be more for older buildings that are well kept).

With the snow storm that happened this week I had an idea on how to find distressed properties.

But with property taxes north of 2% and landlords paying heat, hot water, snow removal, and maintenance costs on older buildings, few of these deals are profitable.  

In the bathroom the ceiling in sagging from being sopping wet, and has gotten worse with snow on the roof.  

The reason the tenants likely left it is because when they moved out there was 2+ ft. of snow on the ground.

Have you accounted for everything: vacancy, accounting, advertising, cleaning, insurance, lawn, snow, legal fees, maintenance, repairs, cap expenses, utilities, taxes? 

Asking $389,0008 unit Annual Rent Income = $54,840Annual Expenses - Gas/Electric = $5020- Insurance = $3500- Property Tax = $6396- Water/Sewer = $3535- Trash/ Lawn / Snow = $24008 year old roof, new water heater, old hot water boilerTenants pay their own electric Coin operated washer/dryerI will be purchasing with 20% downI have my own numbers and have included 5% each for vacancy/ capex in mine.

Think about lawn and snow service too.  

It would Take a bit of re-seeding in the patchy areas (which I already had started doing, but spring in Washington can be sunny one day- snow the next) remove the two dead shrubs  (died because of where they were planted- no sunlight under a big oak tree, the other 6 in the line are fine) and a bit of just pruning back some of the bigger bushes.