Looking to become a first time landlord
So we found a property that we think might make a good rental property. It's in NJ, not the best area, but it could be worse. It's a duplex that is pretty nice. Sale price is 159,000. I'm wondering if we can get that down slightly in this market.
Since there are 2 units, we would like to get a total rent of minmum $1800 between the two of them.
We have a pretty sizable down payment towards this, and it looks like the mortgage would be around 700/mo or less.
We would hire a property management service, which costs 5% of rent/mo. So that is around another 100/mo. So let's say 800/mo fixed costs, plus 3k property taxes/yr.. so that's pretty much 1050 or so per month in costs, plus any maintenance.
If we average 300/mo for maintenance and other costs (insurance?), that leaves us with $450/mo in profit, which seems reasonable.
I don't know if my estimates seem plausible or not.
The second thing to look at is our plan. We were thinking of using legalzoom to form an LLC. In addition, they have lease agreements you can buy off of there for around 75$.
Does this all seem reasonable? Does it seem like it should be successful? Is there anything that I am missing and woul d need to do?
Thanks for any suggestions!
Mike