When is it a good investment?

When is it a good investment?

Member since 2019 · 27 posts · 9 votes

Ok, I own two properties that I have had awhile, they are rentals and I am loving the numbers.   I am now looking to buy more and the market has become super tight here.  Prices are high and inventory low, a definite sellers market...   My question is, how much cash flow if any should my rental unit generate, knowing that I am generating equity in the property.

Every new position I buy moving forward will be 100% financed. That being said, If I amortize at 20 years, and after rent and expenses the property generates very little cash flow, like $30 per month, would that be considered a horrible investment? Keeping in mind after 5 years I should have accrued $25,000 in equity in with zero money of my own? That sounds like a good return to me..... Further, its a condo with zero outside maintenance and fees other than the HOA, which I love.... (I already have one its the easiest thing ever to manage)

In my searching, I have found most listings are generating negative income when looking at a 20 year mortgage and 100% financing.   It's far and few between that result in these zero net or positive cash flowing properties....

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Rental Property Investor · San Diego, CA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes
7y

If I could fully finance a property that was at all positive, on a 20 year am note, I’d buy 10s if thousands of them 

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  • Investor · Easton, PA · Member since 2019 · 46 posts · 19 votes
    7y

    @Timothy Joseph why wouldn’t you amortize over 30 years?

  • Member since 2019 · 27 posts · 9 votes
    7y
    Originally posted by @Kyle M.:

    @Timothy Joseph why wouldn’t you amortize over 30 years?

  • Member since 2019 · 27 posts · 9 votes
    7y

    @Kyle M. I am 40.   I want to have nothing but cash flow at 60.  30 years seems like a really long time.   My first property I did a 10 year note on.   It’s almost paid off.   That will be sweet.   I want to do a lot more though at the same time.

  • Rental Property Investor · Waretown, NJ · Member since 2019 · 4 posts · 6 votes
    7y

    @Timothy Joseph I guess it would depend on your goals and your market. I'm not one of the many people on here that are comfortable investing too far from home.

    In my local market here in New Jersey my basic criteria is the following..

    -Use hard money lending to purchase and renovate. I put 10% down and borrow 90%.

    -Refi with cash back to fully recoop my down payment. (If I didn't recoop my $$ by padding the renovation budget) Refi at under 70% LTV (preferably closer to 60%.)

    -Cash flow $500+ per month with new long term fixed mortgage.

    Not saying my criteria is right or wrong.. It's just the simple math that I use to gauge if I may be interested in purchasing a specific property.

  • Member since 2019 · 27 posts · 9 votes
    7y

    @David Breitweiser those numbers work great.  What method are you using to find your buys?  To end up with 60-70 ltv your remodel has to have maximum effect.   I’m just not seeing cheap properties here in Knoxville that leave enough room to end up with those numbers.   I’ll give you an example.   I made an offer to a bank to buy a foreclosure.   The home remodeled is worth 250,000 but needs 40,000 in repairs.   I offered 180,000 cash as is.   They turned their nose up.   It went to auction and sold to someone for 210,000 plus a 5% buyers premium.  They won’t make money on that.   Who are these people that are buying all these???

  • Investor · Easton, PA · Member since 2019 · 46 posts · 19 votes
    7y

    @Timothy Joseph you would be cash flowing even in the scenario of you saying you are purchasing them at 100% LTV. In 20 years from now if you had a 30 year amortization- rents will only rise with inflation yet your mortgage payments will remain fixed or you could refinance down the road and make them even smaller for increased cash flow.

    This scenario stands unless the communists take over congress and implement their “rent control” plans on all 50 states.... then we don’t know what rents will be going for. Heck we don’t even know if there will be a such thing as private property in 20 years.

  • Member since 2019 · 27 posts · 9 votes
    7y
    Originally posted by @Kyle M.:

    you would be cash flowing even in the scenario of you saying you are purchasing them at 100% LTV. In 20 years from now if you had a 30 year amortization- rents will only rise.

    I’m following you.  

  • Rental Property Investor · Greenville, SC · Member since 2019 · 115 posts · 264 votes
    7y

    @Timothy Joseph where are you finding this lender that’s giving you the option to buy your investment properties with 0% down?

  • Investor · Topeka, KS · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    7y

    IMO, you only buy for cash flow.  If it doesn't generate fat piles of excess cash you don't buy.  Another thing to be careful of is that most people underestimate capex and regular maintenance so your hypothetical $30/month cash flow could easily become negative cash flow.

    For me it's gross rent - 30% (vac, maint, and capex) - PITI = true long term cash flow. And I want true cash flow to be at least 15% COC return.

  • Rental Property Investor · San Diego, CA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    7y

    I just bought an MLS property in a very popular area of Houston. I normally wouldn't buy a SFH for an income property but I have a lot of stuff already in this subdivision.

    This is to say SFH can throw off more than a hundred bucks or so a month. And they don't have to be deeply discounted off market distressed deals. Here is my back of napkin for this deal:

    $520k purchase. $104k down (20%). Mortgage is about $2,050/month. Tax bill seems low at $4500. But let’s toss in insurance and say $500/month for both.

    So you’re at $2550 for all of that. Should rent for $4300 (round down to $4000 to account for vacancy. I own the home across the street and rent it for $4,300) that’s about $1500/month cash flow. Or $18k/year. Or well over a 15% return on your downpayment (and higher if you factor tax savings. Debt service. Appreciation of the property and inflation hedge. Etc). 

    Didn’t factor in maintenance or management since everyone uses their own estimate. And for me my management will be near zero as our manager is just down the street and manages a few hundred other units so tossing this in there with a high quality tenant who will stay for years cost near nothing. No utils (in tenant name) and anti maintenance cost covered by my other conservative ests above 

  • Rental Property Investor · New York City · Member since 2019 · 703 posts · 538 votes
    7y

    The whole idea is not to pay out of pocket. Change a roof, boiler, etc.. and that $20k appreciation becomes -25k. 

  • Steve RozenbergPro Member
    Specialist · Houston, TX · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    7y

    @Timothy Joseph

    @Timothy Joseph

    I think you may be looking at this the wrong way when I first started buying real estate awls I was focused on this cash flow. However I never really thought about what my goals were and why I was buying real estate which led me to buy the wrong properties because I wasn’t focused on the right strategy

    I would suggest focusing on the end goal first know what you want when all this is over and then buy your properties via the strategy to get you to that end goal

    if you need cash for today then it would make sense he would focus on cash flowing properties. If you’re focusing on something to have when you retire in the future and that’s more important then I would focus on properties that are appreciating in value and I would not focus on cash as much because that is not a strategy t get you to that goal.

    Start with the end goal and work backwards

  • Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 871 votes
    7y

    @Steve Rozenberg I have followed you for some time and I see you make this comment, or very similar, on a regular basis.  I gather that the notion of cash-flowing property and appreciating property are mutually exclusive.  Is that a fair statement?

    Are there no areas that effectively meet both criteria?

  • Steve RozenbergPro Member
    Specialist · Houston, TX · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    7y

    @Mark Sewell

    Great question I will do my best to answer without further confusion.

    I would yes that if you can find that then yes definitely. But the challenge as we all know is that to find a property that has all 5 pillars which is what I teach and help people on is hard to get all at the same time

    1. Cashflow

    2. Debt Paysdown

    3. Appreciation

    4. Depreciation

    5. Equity Capture

    Some you get automatically. The others when you buy you need to determine which is most important based on your end goal. And based on your end goal the types of deals you move forward on becomes your strategy. Which at the end of the day buying is a math equation and really nothing else. Just like buying a stock

    Now we can all agree that finding a deal with all those 5 would be amazing home run. And yes they exist but getting a base hit, if you get enough of them you still get around the field... As long as those hits are part of the strategy and not just swinging at anything. I want to slamdunk a basketball, but I would happy to just get a layup :-)

     I suggest to people that you come up with one or two that are non-negotiables that must be in the deal and those should be aligned with your strategy to get you to your end goal the other things are gravy and are just pluses and don’t try to get everything at once in one deal. Overtime those other things may come into play such as when the property goes up in value and the rent goes up so would your cash flow over time 

    Not sure if this answered or made it more complicated to explain 

  • Rental Property Investor · New York City · Member since 2019 · 703 posts · 538 votes
    7y
    Originally posted by @David Breitweiser:

    @Timothy Joseph I guess it would depend on your goals and your market. I'm not one of the many people on here that are comfortable investing too far from home.

    In my local market here in New Jersey my basic criteria is the following..

    -Use hard money lending to purchase and renovate. I put 10% down and borrow 90%.

    -Refi with cash back to fully recoop my down payment. (If I didn't recoop my $$ by padding the renovation budget) Refi at under 70% LTV (preferably closer to 60%.)

    -Cash flow $500+ per month with new long term fixed mortgage.

    Not saying my criteria is right or wrong.. It's just the simple math that I use to gauge if I may be interested in purchasing a specific property.

    Where in NJ? I live in NY, about 25 miles north of Manhattan and the closest area in NJ to me is Bergen County.  There is absolutely no investment opportunities here unless its big development or huge out of pocket with minimal returns.  Taxes alone make it not worth it. 

  • Real Estate Investor · Saint Paul, MN · Member since 2017 · 543 posts · 474 votes
    7y

    @Dennis M. The kid selling night crawlers isn’t creating any equity or tax benefits - not a good comparison.

  • Rental Property Investor · Erie, PA · Member since 2018 · 6k+ posts · 9k+ votes
    7y
    Originally posted by @Mark S.:

    @Dennis M. The kid selling night crawlers isn’t creating any equity or tax benefits - not a good comparison.

    He didn’t have to put any of his own money up in the deal either 😂

     Gotta have cashflow 

  • Member since 2019 · 27 posts · 9 votes
    7y

    Well I made an offer, we will see what happens. I don't need cash flow, instead I'd rather put every penny towards the equity in the home. If I get it I'll turn around and throw 10,000 into a remodel. That makes everything brand new. The have and water heater were just replaced last month. The HOA covers the roof, and all exterior, this should leave me a mostly maintenance free property for some time.

    There is no comparison to night crawlers.   Haha.  

  • Rental Property Investor · Waretown, NJ · Member since 2019 · 4 posts · 6 votes
    7y

    @Anthony Rosa I am down toward south jersey by the shore. I stick to Ocean County. Some of the towns here have lower taxes then others and ALL of the towns here have low taxes when compared to most of the market north of here.

  • Rental Property Investor · New York City · Member since 2019 · 703 posts · 538 votes
    7y
    Originally posted by @David Breitweiser:

    @Anthony Rosa I am down toward south jersey by the shore. I stick to Ocean County. Some of the towns here have lower taxes then others and ALL of the towns here have low taxes when compared to most of the market north of here.

     Areas like Belmar, Toms River, Wildwood, Ortley, etc..?  

    I love Lavallette!

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