Rental Property Investor · Mercer Island, WA · Member since 2008 · 22k+ posts · 14k+ votes
13y
It would include purchase plus repairs.
However, its chock full of assumptions. In particular, that the rent is around $500. If you apply the 50% rule (50% of scheduled rents go to vacancy, expenses, and capital), then subtract your debt service (P&I only, not taxes or insurance) you'll find that you can pay more than $50K for $1000 in rent and still have positive cash flow. I really dislike the 2% rule. Especially at today's low interest rates.
Rental Property Investor · Mercer Island, WA · Member since 2008 · 22k+ posts · 14k+ votes
13y
It would include purchase plus repairs.
However, its chock full of assumptions. In particular, that the rent is around $500. If you apply the 50% rule (50% of scheduled rents go to vacancy, expenses, and capital), then subtract your debt service (P&I only, not taxes or insurance) you'll find that you can pay more than $50K for $1000 in rent and still have positive cash flow. I really dislike the 2% rule. Especially at today's low interest rates.
Landlord · Dallas, TX · Member since 2012 · 505 posts · 34 votes
13y
Jon Holdman, Thanks Jon! As far as calculating cash flow, if you subscribe to the 50% rule.
Cash Flow
Total rent income - debt service - operating expenses (50%).
Correct? It seems like it would be difficult to get a cash flowing property on a 60k house that rents $1,000 unless you are paying in cash and have no loan.
Rental Property Investor · Mercer Island, WA · Member since 2008 · 22k+ posts · 14k+ votes
13y
Let me assume you can get a 4%, 30 year, 75% LTV loan on a $60K house. That may be a little optimistic, but its close.
That's a $45K loan with a P&I of $215. $1000 in rent less 50% for vacancy, expenses, and capital leaves $500 in NOI. Less P&I of $215 leaves $285 cash flow a month, $3422 a year. On a $15K investment, that's a 23% cash on cash return. That's a screaming deal, in my book.
Difficult to find that here. A more realistic deal might be to pay $75K and put in $10K for rehab and get the $1000. That gives me a loan of $56,250 and payments of $267. That leaves $231 a month or $2777 a year in cash flow. Total investment is $18,750 for the down payment plus $10,000 for the rehab. So, the cash on cash is 9.7%. Not as good, but certainly not a loser. Even if the loan is 5%, I still make 8.3% cash on cash. A commercial loan at 4% and 15 years (I'm pretty sure this is available locally for investments, as many as you want) gives me only a 3.5% cash on cash.
The 50% assumes you're using a PM. I manage my properties myself. So, I'm earning the PM's cut. I would drop the 50% to 35%. That gives me cash flow of $234 a month and raises my CoC to 9.8%.
If I can buy at $70K and put in $5K to make it rent ready, I'm up to 14% CoC with those terms. That's $75K all in. Vs. $1000 in rent that's a ratio of 1.33%.
So, my advice is to do the math on your potential deals and take a rule of thumb like the 2% rule with a shaker of salt.
Real Estate Investor · chicago, IL · Member since 2012 · 1k+ posts · 231 votes
13y
1 thing the 50% rule assumes is property taxes/insurance will be 20%. This is not always true. In my state (home of the corrupt Blago) you're talking 30% off the top!
My advise - figure out your taxes/insurance, divide it by the MARKET RENTAL RATE (not what you think you can get or what your agent says you can get) & then add in 10% for vacancy/eviction/non-payers & 10% for maintenance/repairs/capitals improvements.
This will give you an even more quick-to-figure-out estimate.
Investor · Southeast, MI · Member since 2012 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
13y
The 2% rule is really a sliding scale. If you're in a nicer area, you will not get 2%, but you will have fewer problems. If you're in a worse area, you need to get more than 2% because you will have more problems. I have a couple houses that I get 10% on. They are good now, but one house had two horrible tenants in a row. You have to weigh the risk against the reward.
Landlord · Dallas, TX · Member since 2012 · 505 posts · 34 votes
13y
Also Jon Holdman when you talk about LTV on a distressed property, the only loan products available for this sort of transaction are either personal lines of credit like a HELOC or a hard money loan correct?
Rental Property Investor · Mercer Island, WA · Member since 2008 · 22k+ posts · 14k+ votes
13y
The trouble with trying to slice and dice the 50% is that you're turning one overall guess into a bunch of little ones. And then its easy to trim the individual guesses and end up with an overly optimistic set of projections. There are no explicit assumptions in the 50% rule about taxes or vacancy rates.
When I chop it from 50% to 35% because of self managing, I'm making an assumption that works for me. I know in my area PMs will take 10% of collected rent. I assume I will turn the property over once per year and the PM will take half a months rent to do it. So, if the property is rented for 12 months a year, the PM will get a total of 10% of the scheduled rents for their monthly fee plus 1/24 of the annual rents for the leas-up fee. That 1/24th is 4.16% per month. So, based on those assumptions, the PM will cost me 14.16% per month.
For any rental, you want to either have the thing paid off or you want to a long term loan. A 4%, 15 year commercial loan would work. Or a conventional loan would work. Hard money or a HELOC won't work. Hard money is expensive and short term. HELOC are also short term (5 or 10 years, typically) and the rate can be adjusted. And they can be called.
Where HELOCs or HMLs do help is to acquire the property, fix it, rent it, let it season, then refi. Let me go through an example with a hard money loan. Lets use the $70K purchase/$5K fixup example. Lets assume it will appraise for $100K ARV, the HML will lend 70% of that at 15% IO for six months. And that I can do a refi at six months into a 4%, 15 year loan at 75% of the ARV.
Up front:
buy $70,000
rehab $5,000
ARV $100,000
loan $70,000
closing costs $1,500
points $2,800
total to close $79,300
cash to close $9,300
To hold (ignoring other small costs)
interest $5,250
So, the cost of the hard money turns a pretty fair deal into a loser. The $8,000 in interest and points plus two sets of closing costs are too much for this deal. A HELOC would be much cheaper. The calculations are the same, but the deal may well work.
Real Estate Investor · chicago, IL · Member since 2012 · 1k+ posts · 231 votes
13y
& while jon is right, this is a technical loser of -$40/month, you just gained $27k in appraised equity + a huge chunck of principal paydown each month since this is a 15-yr loan.
Rental Property Investor · Mercer Island, WA · Member since 2008 · 22k+ posts · 14k+ votes
13y
Originally posted by Scott W.:
& while jon is right, this is a technical loser of -$40/month, you just gained $27k in appraised equity + a huge chunck of principal paydown each month since this is a 15-yr loan.
your net worth just skyrocketed.
Very good point. Current income is not the only reason to buy. You're paying $40 a month (on average.) But you now have an asset who's value is increasing. Through paydown, but also, especially over the long term, appreciation. You can probably raise rents over time, too, while your mortgage stays the same.
When investing, you need to consider your goals. If its long term wealth accumulation, a deal like this may be fine. If you're willing to manage it yourself, this deal is actually cash flow positive. If you need significant income right now, and can't self manage, this deal doesn't work.