Skip to content
Home Blog Landlording & Property Management

7 Mistakes of the Newbie Apartment Building Investor

Michael Blank
4 min read
7 Mistakes of the Newbie Apartment Building Investor

Apartment building investing is probably the most reliable, repeatable and teachable way to generate income and retire early. It’s not a get-rich quick scheme but with persistence and time it’s one of the best ways to achieve your financial goals.

Unfortunately, not all that glitters is gold. And not all apartment building investors are successful. If things go badly, they can be costly.

In this article, I review the top 7 mistakes I see newbie apartment building investors make, so maybe we can all learn from them!

Mistake # 1: Buying in the wrong area

You can fix a lot of things about a building: you can renovate, improve cosmetics, and control costs. But you can’t fix the building’s location. Don’t buy a building in an area that is declining. If you do, then your vacancies will rise and your rents will drop. Instead, buy in an area that is improving.

Related: Newbies Take Note: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Houses for $30,000

Mistake #2: Getting happy ears and rushing into a deal

Especially when we’re just getting started, we are eager to do our first deal. The temptation is even greater if we’re using our own money. We want to put it to use, and we don’t need to convince other investors that a deal is good. Be patient and take your time. Commit to looking at a lot of deals so that you can recognize a good deal when you see one. Analyze tons of deals to get practice.

Mistake # 3: Taking short-cuts during due diligence

Doing due diligence is a lot of work, and it can also cost money. I am always tempted to spend as little time and money on something as possible, but sometimes that can bite you in the butt. Make sure you have a good due diligence check-list and then stick to it. Don’t cut corners.

For example, one mistake is not to review the seller’s bank deposits. The seller is reporting a 5% vacancy rate, which is confirmed by the rent roll. Great. But how much of that rent is she collecting? What if she’s only collecting half the rent and the rest of the tenants are all behind and need to be evicted?

Fortunately, I didn’t skip this step when I bought my 12-unit building, and I discovered just that. I was able to negotiate terms with the seller that addressed this situation, but had I skipped this step, I would have been in a lot of trouble.

One thing I didn’t do (but was advised to do by one of the landlord/tenant attorneys I interviewed) was to check the public records for any court activity by the tenants. If a tenant is in and out of landlord/tenant court, then that tenant is familiar with the system and will be a management problem.

I did skip this step, and it created massive issues for me with two tenants who worked the court system to their advantage and to my detriment.

Don’t cut corners during due diligence!

Related: How Due Diligence Can Save You Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars

Mistake # 4: Not having enough cash reserves

You do a good job estimating repairs, income and expenses. Your building is doing pretty well. But then things start to go wrong. The roof you thought would last for another five years suddenly leaks and needs to be replaced. One of your tenants sues you. Several stop paying rent. Your boiler breaks. Officials discover you’re not lead paint compliant and force you to remediate. It could be one of many possibilities that are hard to predict.

For this reason, you should maintain a reserve fund that you can use for emergencies so that you don’t run out of cash. How much? I don’t have a hard and fast rule for this but I shoot for 2% – 3% of the purchase price.

You should also build up a reserve out of cash flow. The rule of thumb is $250 per door per year. This is slated to be used for capital expenses like replacing roofs, boilers, walk-ways etc.

From my own experience, had I not had a reserve fund there is a good chance I would have run out of money in my building because of all the troubles that one of my tenants created (read the whole grueling story in this Bigger Pockets article – brutal).

You never want to run out of cash.

Mistake # 5: Lack of cash flow

In our eagerness to do a deal, especially one where the potential profits after renovations are huge, we sometimes get into deals that don’t cash flow from day one. This is a dangerous situation and should only be attempted once you have experience. And if you do, you better have a much bigger reserve fund that can sustain you for longer than you think.

The best thing to do is to not do it. While you can get into deals where the cash flow is less than you want at first, make sure that there is sufficient cash flow to pay the bills with a good margin for error.

Mistake # 6: Poor property management

Your property management is so critical. You can do this yourself for better control and to learn. If you hire one, make sure you hire a GREAT property management company and then manage them carefully. Your life can be pure hell if you have a bad one and can be utter bliss if you have a good one. My intent here is not to write about what to look for in a good property management company (maybe in a later article if you’re interested!) but to highlight that this should be an area for you to pay particular attention to.

Mistake # 7: Some Day …

Many newbie investors never get the chance to make mistakes 1 – 6 because they sit on the sidelines and never do anything. They say “Some day, when I have the money.” Or “Some day, when the kids are in school. In college. When I’m retired.” Sure, they’ll buy books and seminars, but they never actually do anything with it. This frustrates me to no end! I would say this is probably the biggest rookie mistake. My advice? Go get some knowledge (start here with the Bigger Pockets!) but know that there is NO WAY you can know everything up front. If you want to get going with real estate investing of any sort, you’re going to have to DO SOMETHING at some point. Will you make mistakes? Absolutely. Be smart, manage your risk, but get started now.

Conclusion

While apartment building investing can be challenging, we are all fortunate here at the Bigger Pockets to be able to learn from each other, hopefully avoid some common mistakes, and speed up the learning curve.

What are some of your lessons learned?

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.