All Forum Posts by: Kristina Anderson

@Manda Gouvion for my husband and I we talked about it for a couple of years before agreeing we would do it. At that point we began researching and it was maybe 2 months of research and then we found a property and voila! We now own 16 doors in the Columbus Ohio area. Good luck to you!

Thanks @ Robert Ellis. We've been doing our research and completely understand that those are the more desirable areas.  

@Allyssa, we are looking at areas north of OSU campus, but also Victorian Village area. We would also prefer larger buildings. 4- or 8- family, even larger. My husband's best friend lives in Columbus, which gave us the idea for investing there. :-)

I really appreciated this post. I think it's easy to get caught up in the analysis. We are just now ourselves in the "research" phase, specifically into Columbus, OH. We are also doing this from Brooklyn (yay, BK!). We've decided to get our "team" in place (we manage our own property here in BK but I personally don't have the stomach to do it long distance) and just go for it. I may be naïve, but if the property doesn't work out, we can always sell it. We are very fortunate to have some cash reserves for unexpected capital improvements. You kind of have to - even if the best of circumstances. Water heaters die, boilers stop working, a toilet begins leaking, etc. But I think the sentiment of this post is well done. And maybe my husband and I will shoot for 3 properties in a year's time, as well (we had thought 2). Thanks!!

Thank you, Harvey! That's very helpful. Quick question: is the ~$85/month charge for property management for smaller buildings (1- and 2-family) only? Am I right to assume the price would increase for larger properties? 

This is our first post!  

My husband and I are in the process of researching the Columbus, OH real estate market, with hopes of purchasing an investment property by the end of 2019. We are based on the East Coast. We need help navigating the nuances of a new market, particularly the costs associated with managing property. Specifically: 

1) what should we expect to pay for a property manager? How does this scale up for larger properties (vs. duplexes)? 

2) what utilities / services are we required to pay as landlords that we may not be thinking of? (i.e., is garbage collection a separate cost or embedded into RE Taxes? Is there a separate sewer cost?). 

3) in smaller buildings, can we expect tenants to do maintenance like shoveling snow in the driveway or mowing the lawn or is that something landlords do?

We don't have a specific property in mind, yet and are open to both duplexes as well as larger residential apartment buildings. If the cap rate works. Any help outlining the "extra" expenses we'll be looking at would be helpful.  (Note: we currently own and live in a 3 family and already understand about surprise costs. We just don't know how the Columbus area works in terms of what our P&L will look like in terms of the L side.)

Thanks to all!

Tina