All Forum Posts by: Bogdan Cirlig

Different angle:

You have 49% renters in there, that is, you will have landlord competition for vacancies at any given time. The overall vacancy rate is not atrocious, 11% which tells you they rent fast for right price.

You are in a low income area, median household is barely $36k/yr. 98% of the local residents didn't go to College, so you get an idea of the wages. 

Schools are decent.

Play with 3 different ads, $50 bucks apart. And yes, it's cold and snowy now. I have properties in Chicago, none rented until 2 weeks ago. None came to even visit or call in Jan :)

As with any rental in a high renter area, they want the nicest on the block if they have plenty to choose from. I personally don't like your pics, low quality, lights are off, fireplace is dirty. When you take pics, take horizontal and make sure EVERY single light is on. Don't take them against window light etc etc.

The Rent for a 3 BDR SFH is not the same as 3 BDR Apartment and similarly, a 2000 sqft SFH 3BDR is not the same as a 1500 sqft one, even on the same block. Radius only method to pick-up comps cannot differentiate between a highway dividing an upscale area vs a low income one. That's why human appraisers know what comps to exclude from the same radius.

See how the target property rent compares with the neighborhood, zip code and the city. Is it the steal you were looking for? How safe is the area? Does it have great schools? See real report herezilpy.com/ri4pwmp71

See up to the minute comparable properties as soon as they appear on the market, from all syndicated sources covering 98.5% of the US population.

Save hours of scouring on Craigslist, Zillow and other listing sites, we already do all that for you. We're crunching an average of 15 rental listings and updates each second, around the clock. That's over 1 million per day!

Find out why professional Appraisers and RE Agents use Zilpy.com to estimate the Cash-flow of an investment. Get your FREE Zilpy Rent & Neighborhood Crime Report now at Zilpy.com today!

Use a Cashflow calculator. It should look like the pictures I attached below:

I'd check the Renter density in a specific neighborhood. That coupled with the Vacancy rate should give you a good starting point.

There you go, see attached numbers.

Adjust the comps, whatever you find, even across different bedrooms. Say you find SFH 4 comps and you want 2 bed apt, you can equalize down to $/sqft, also you can equalize further, the less sqft the pricier per sqft a home/apartment is. In the end it's how much people are willing to pay for living space. You will find there's not a huge difference between apt and sfh in terms of $/sqft, sometimes apt wins if they are upscale communities with amenities such as pool etc, sometimes sfh wins.

Zilpy monthly stats for Feb 2015 are out, rents continue inching up from previous month.

Check your metro area trend as well. zilpy.com/US

@Brandon Turner  : Great question and the answer depends, I would say mainly on your target Age range. Schools don't matter to the young professionals that have at least 10 years ahead of them before their yet to be born kids will hit the school, but the proximity to "social happenings" is key.

If you are looking at families (with kids) then definitely:

- schools, crime. I do believe for the normal SFH target, schools are paramount to property and rental prices. I have clear examples when schools across a street score 7 vs 10 out of 10, and there's a 25% difference in rent and property price.

- proximity to parks, groceries shopping

- neighborhood profile, no matter how you look at it, tenants from different "asset classes" rarely ever mix themselves.

- jobs are great, however, people are willing to commute, usually close to jobs means busy/noisy, apart from Milenials who love that social interaction, older families with kids may prefer a quiet "cul-de-sac" street where kids can play freely

- proximity to certain negative aspects such as railroads, flood zones

On the inventory level, I am monitoring the supply/demand of rentals in a certain area of interest. Sought after places vanish in 1 weekend with 20 applications on it. I personally go and act as prospective tenant and get the pulse.

If you want to dig deeper you should check the planned development in that area see what's coming, maybe a new mall is in the works.

I personally think that you should identify a great rental market before it is obviously a great rental market :). By then, everyone knows, and proverbially the cab driver gives you hot stock tips which means you're already late to the game.

Zilpy.com launched today the Deal Cashflow Analysis to help you analyze your investment. The rental data and vacancy info is already pre-filled from Zilpy Rent report. Play "what-if" scenarios and see the numbers changing in real-time. 

See real report here: zilpy.com/ri4pwmp71

That is in addition to the comprehensive Rent estimates that uses not only the number of bedrooms, but also Property type, Baths and SQFT plus crime rate, school ratings and demographics to identify similar neighborhood comparable properties.

See up to the minute comparable properties as soon as they appear on the market, from all syndicated sources covering 98.5% of the US population.

Save hours of scouring on Craigslist, Zillow and other listing sites, we already do all that for you. We're crunching an average of 15 rental listings and updates each second, around the clock. That's over 1 million per day!

Find out why professional Appraisers and RE Agents use Zilpy.com to estimate the Cash-flow of an investment. Get your FREE Zilpy Rent & Neighborhood Crime Report now at Zilpy.com today!

Having first degree friends with boots on the ground hunting down investments in Houston, I'm sad to say: you're late. Everyone snapped all they could off the market in past months and now they're waiting to see how oil jobs (or loss of) will affect the local market.