All Forum Posts by: Shane Kelly

To simply repeat what everyone above said, my biggest issue is that unrealistic cash flow number. Even the best deal I've found in my year and a half as an agent barely cracks that threshold and that was a one-of-a-kind deal. Realistically other than that I don't see any issues with your criteria.

I'm not sure if you were just making it easy to break down by saying $1000 mortgage payment being the only expense, but make sure you're properly running your numbers, because if the only thing you're factoring for is cost of money, you're going to lose a lot of money really fast. As for the rents, you're not going to get the same rent price for a 3 bedroom unit in a triplex as you will in a 3 bedroom single family home. There are many amenities in a single family home that are not in a multifamily, thus they both will not receive the same rent amount. Not on market from a cash tenant, and not from a section 8 tenant. Make sure you are familiar with how to run rental comps for this stuff before diving in.

Cash is king in Cleveland. Especially in a lot of the suburbs you've mentioned. Not gonna be a ton of first time home buyers in some of those cities. It'll be a lot more second home buyers, finally getting their first house in "good suburb" or something similar. I'm surprised you're even finding deals in a place like Westlake and Rocky River, maybe I can see Medina or North Olmstead, but the previously mentioned are all at prices I couldn't justify. My best suggestion would be looking into auctions maybe? I know it will need to be cash, but maybe if you can find one at the right price, you can swing it. And if you do look at auctions, consider the cities you've mentioned so far will NOT go for the minimum bid price. They will go for a much closer to market price. Best of luck!

All I would really advise here is to make it easy for the next tenant to get settled into it. With a complicated state like it is in, the tenants would not get much use of it, which would kinda defeat the purpose of having a yard in the first place.

I've been wondering who the people buying in Lakewood are myself. From what I've been able to gather, it's out of country or sometimes out of state buyers who really don't care what they're paying or making for that matter. They buy cash and they pay stupid prices. I don't try to compete in Lakewood anymore. I make use of my knowledge of the submarkets to try to find the only good deals that are left (which is not many nowadays).

Assuming that the place doesn't look bad, and that there isn't something obvious preventing it being rented like being in an absolute warzone, then all I can think of the square footage or layout. There is something to be said for Functional Obsolescence and the house may just have an undesirable layout. It being under 1000 sqft and being a 3 bdrm does mean that things can be a little cramped sometimes in Cleveland homes. But at $915, I'm surprised someone still hasn't tried to apply. That's a competitive price for sure (once again assuming it's not in a warzone).

Check out Winningincleveland.com . It's a group created by a local investor/agent here and could be a great resource. 

I'm fairly familiar with the majority of investor-focused brokerages here in Cleveland at this point. I don't know all of their structures, but I can atleast get you an idea of who to look at. Shoot me a message if you care to chat. Best of luck!

I think some of the big things going for it other than the project you've mentioned are the fact that University Circle has begun to bleed over into Hough, Fairfax, and some of the far extremes of East Cleveland, and that it's literally on the floor, so it can really only go up from here. It's not the highest on my list of crappy cities that I think will turn, but I do think that it's in my top 5. I also concur with your last comment, it will not turn over night. To the clients I do advise to buy over there it's always that they buy for CHEAP, they buy with nothing but cashflow in mind (in the short term), and that they hold for as long as possible.

Slavic Village is a pretty rough neighborhood as it stands. Some nearby areas are seeing development, for example: https://www.the5115.com/?gclid... in North Broadway, this was just constructed and it's far too nice for the area. Perhaps a sign that the neighborhood is turning, but Slavic village is a big neighborhood as well so you could be near the development or far from it. Either way, when you're in these D class neighborhoods of Cleveland, you need to be very weary. They are street-by-street.