Multi-family expenses

[Dave Bingham]

Hi Gang!

I used to work in an appraisal firm that handled market studies and appraisals for multi-family such as apartments, assisted living facilities, and nursing homes. I'm getting back into apartments as an investor now but have been out of the business for ten years and in looking at the various deals it seems my expense percentages have changed somewhat. I'm seeing expenses varying all over the place. This makes sense with different classes of assets and the year they were built. The problem I'm running into is that my data is dated and it's difficult finding a baseline to work with. When I was active, any apartments that were lower than Class B or lower and had an expense ratio of less than 45% was suspect but that all seems different now.

I know that much of this can be affected by the property management and how they handle maintenance and the degree to which they allow deferment to occur. I also know another large variable is the area of the country but if you could give me your best shot I'd appreciate it. Hopefully others can benefit from this as well.

Class A:

Maintenance expense as a percentage of NOI____.  Expenses Ratio_____.

Class B:

Maintenance expense as a percentage of NOI____. Expenses Ratio_____.

Class C:

Maintenance expense as a percentage of NOI____. Expenses Ratio_____.

Class D:

Maintenance expense as a percentage of NOI____. Expenses Ratio_____.

Thanks!