All Forum Posts by: Mila Posternak

Looking for the current best apartment investing course. I already own one multifamily but now looking to get into apartments. I like Grant Cardone, but his course is 5k, and I'm assuming there are better options. 

Okay so you're saying to try to find longer term tennats? Isn't the college area usually a constant turnover as kids move around a lot and graduate?

I have a 6 bedroom house in the Rutgers Unversity, New Brunswick area and I'm looking for 10 students to sign off for June 2020. I've had ads up on places4students, craigslist, and turbo Tennant since October 2019. But I've had little interest the whole time. This is a single-family home with 4 doubles and 2 singles. This is the time of year when the last students are figuring out their housing situation for the 2020 school cycle. But now with Coronavirus, I don't even know what to do? Should I even bother continuing paying 70 per month on places4students right now to keep my ad up for the students to see? It recently expired on 3/20. In general, I'm getting worried about how I will rent this house with the low amount of interest that I've been getting and with the Coronavirus now. Should I maybe try to rent out to each student separately instead of continuing to look for a group of 10?

They only allow a certain amount of characters on turbotennant. My places 4 students post has a lot more info, but I'm waiting to see if I should reactivate it.

Any help would be appreciated. I recently purchased this house and the last landlord had it rented year after year. We didn't even raise rent this year, but since we posted in October we only had a handful of people come to see the house. 

Gotcha, okay thanks. 

I'm pretty new to investing in houses so I could really use some help here. Thanks in advance. 

Here is the math that I did:

$100,000 down on 500k single-family in New Brunswick Nj, very close to the center of Rutgers Campus.

$10,000 for closing costs (overestimated) and $10,000 for repairs that need to be done= 120k cash down total

4400 rent

Mortage (based on 3.9% interest rate) AND property taxes: -2841/mo

Capital expenses (estimated at 8% of rent): -352

Profit: 1207/mo

Return: 12%

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My Main Question:

I just found out that the property brought in a rental income of 4400 only in 2019. It was bringing in 4250 in 2018 and 3700 IN 2017! There are caps in New brunswick to how much you can charge for rent so I'm assuming they raised it to the limit each year. The same guy that repairs my other property in New brunswick, told me that students fight over renting this house every year. And this was confirmed by someone I know that works for the town, also I went to school there and know this is a very popular street for college kids. However, I was under the impression the whole time that they've been rented out for years consistently at 4400. But now that we are under contract I get the rental history and find out that it was just recently raised to 4400 in 2019. So my question is should I bet on this property bringing in at least 4400 a month consistently going forward to get those 12% returns? Or is that a bad assumption. I'm still really new to investing so I'm not exactly sure how to judge rental history. What I do know for a fact is that if I can only rent it out for 3700 like they did in 2017 instead of 4400, the returns would be much much lower?  

Bottom line: Is it not a good investment if there is only proof of it being rented out at this higher rate just one year?

Additional information:

- This house is a 5 bedroom and only 5 people can live there

- It was also built in 1860's (but seems very well maintained) *should I be concerned about the year built? (all electric seems updated)?

- I have another house in New brusnwick, 2 unit multi-family, a little further away from the center of campus in new brunswick. One unit has 2 bedrooms and the other has 3 so a total of 5 bedrooms and can have up to 7 people living in both units total. But including renting out the garage it brings in a total of 4,010 in rent. It's still walking distance from campus but not on a main street like the property that I'm considering buying. But still, my tenants pay much less at the house that I currently own than the 4400 I would hope to get out of this new property that I'm under contract for and considering buying.

Any help would be appreciated because again I don't really know how to judge past rental history confidently.  

Thanks Taylor your response got me thinking and it helped me a lot. 

So I'm a little confused because I read that Grant Cardone said to not buy a house for yourself because it's a bad investment. But when I crunch the numbers I seem to be getting more "profit" by buying a house and no longer paying rent, rather than buying a multifamily in new Brunswick, NJ (college town) and renting it out. I also heard Dave Ramsey say that you should only buy houses in cash. I can afford the single family townhouse for myself in cash, but not the Multifamily in New brusnwick, that one will have to be mortgage.  

Here is a breakdown of my numbers. I need some help because I feel like I'm missing something. I also overestimated capital expenses for both, at least I think I did.

Current Rent: 1968/mo (we pay all utilities)

BUYING MY OWN HOUSE (In cash)

250,000 purchase in cash
Property taxes: 649
Hoa Fees : 262
Insurance: 79
Capital expenses: 300
Total: 1290/mo expenses
Savings on rent: 1968 - 1290:
Profit: 678/mo

BUYING A MULTIFAMILY (Mortgage)

500k Purchase price (will probably get it for 450k, but worse case)

If we put 250k down (same as above)
30 year mortgage
2524/ mo total expenses (Principal and Interest 1,187; Property Taxes 824; Homeowners' Insurance: 133 capital expenses: 380)
4200/mo in rent
1676/mo profit
Minus our rent of $1968: -292 profit
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After the multi family is fully paid off: 1354 total expenses
After expenses 2846 profit – 1968 = 878 profit

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So based on this isn't buying a home going to make me more money? At least until the multi-family is fully paid off. I'm not sure if I missed something or if I did it wrong. I would really appreciate it if someone can take a look and let me know if I messed something up or if there is something I am not considering. 

I'm struggling to find tenants for a house that is really close to Rutgers University near New Brunswick NJ. I've received under 10 leads in the last about 15 days. I've posted on craigslist, turbo tenant (which posts everywhere), and places4students.com (this is the college campus posting site). None of the leads that have contacted me have led to even one showing of the house. I read here that the college renting cycle starts around June and that you should have your listing up by May 1st. I just bought this house mid-June. I hope that doesn't mean I'll have to wait a year to get tenants.  Also I'm pretty sure that compared to the other properties I see, it's a good deal for the monthly rent. This was the same rent the last owner was charging too, and he had 7 years of leases. 

Here is the posting from craigslist:

https://cnj.craigslist.org/apa/d/new-brunswick-rutgers-3-bdr-house-only/6916140923.html

I'm not sure where I'm going wrong, but any help would be appreciated. Thanks