Low Maintenance Investment properties

Maintenance is always a big issue when I'm buying investment real estate for me and my clients. I personally like rental homes that have no air conditioners. Those babies(air conditioners) can run you some big money.

I still have a few rental homes in the Phoenix Arizona area. You probably know that it's very hot their. In fact death can occur if their is no cooling present. So having tenants in those type of properties is a big responsibility. Keeping them running can cost you a lot of cash flow income.

If your flipping the property an air conditioner is a big cost to the construction if you have to replace it. In the Phoenix Area you needed 3-5 ton unit to cool a home. That cost could be as high as $5,000-$6,000 dollars a unit!

I have quite a few properties in the mid west. Those properties do not require central air (I might have a few window units in my properties. but the tenant has to pay an extra $25.00-$50.00 a month to have the window unit if we have to add one). I hear your question on well you have to have a heater, and your right. In homes and Duplex's the cost is 25%-40% of air conditioners.

Cash Flowing properties require you to consider all the big cost on your maintenance over the time you have the property when considering you cash flow position. In the Cleveland area we average $500-$800 per month net cash flow. When we have to replace a heater(we rebuild them if we can) it runs $2500 on average. At $500 a month net income, that would take 5 month's to cover the cost.

Let's consider the air conditioner cost at the same cash flow per month($500 per month net cash flow). That would eat up 10 months or double the time a heater would cost.

The repairs on older air conditioners are a lot more than a heater in our case. Compressors can cost up to $1200. We just rebuilt two heaters in a duplex and that only cost $785.00, the HVAC company gave my client a two year warranty with it also. That particular unit cash flows $775 per month net. So in a little over a month the units will be paid for. That's seems reasonable.

That brings up my last point. Consider your cash flow net monthly and maintenance cost on your property. If your making $100, $200, $300 a month net that could be costly in the long run. $1200-$3600 net yearly income does not cover the cost of replacing an air conditioner, and could take you years to cover the cost. Tax experts will tell you that is a tax write off, but it's still a cost and your write off is about 30 cents on the dollar on your taxes. Doesn't sound like great financial advice to me.

So when your looking at the different areas to invest in remember that air conditioners can eat up some or all of your monthly cash flow. if you want to look at some of the properties we do go to RooftopVideo.com Brett Young Valley Realty and Rooftopinvestment.com

Videos tell you alot

I have been collecting videos and pictures for my business for a lot of years. Videos/Pictures can help you look at the property in a different forum. If you have a lot of people at the property when you are looking at it, you may not see everything during that time. The video will help you see it all again at your convince and pick up on some things you may not have seen before.

It's also a great place for history of projects you've done. I remember at one seminar I personally ran a video of some neighborhoods I liked. I noticed a great attention from the crowd on that video. It worked I sold 6 properties that night.

I also created a website for my videos. This site allows you to look at some of the properties we have done. It also allows my clients to always have a place to see their properties. They can also view some other properties in different areas that may interest them. I will be adding exciting new stuff to that site as it matures.

When I want to sell or land contract a home I post it on another site. This site is just for rent to own properties.
This lets my sales people have a place for potential buyers to go and view the video and pictures of the property before they see the property. This saves gas and time. It also makes you look professional and you can explain the details of each deal. The price and the down payment, this will screen your lookers out quickly.

The site also has all the other properties that are rent to own and their details. The potential client can view all our current properties and decide which one fits their needs and pocket book! So either way we get a sale for our client!

One last place I post videos is Facebook I have a special website with all my educational videos on that site Another resource for my clients and potential clients to see what Rooftopinvestment is doing.

I also post videos and Webinar's on this blog to help you see some of the great ideas in real estate investing we have. I hope you enjoy and learn from them.

So there you go Videos are a great source for you to be updated and keep others updated in what's going on their project. Brett Young Rooftopinvestment.com

Keeping it real in real estate

When your remodeling a home the first thing you need to decide on is what your going to do with that property? Are you going to rent it? Sell it? Land contract it? This will make a huge difference on what you want to put into the property.

Rentals are usually always the least expensive. You can go with one color in the paint department. You don't have to lay tile on the floors(lay linoleum instead). You can also use less expensive lighting and fixtures for the home. There are a lot of investor and investor consultants that will tell you that you need the best of everything in this type of home, but you don't. If an area is getting $900 a month that's basically what you will receive n your rent. When potential tenants come in and see a nice clean freshly painted property that will usually suffice that type of client and seal your new tenant.

On the flip side of investing you need the nicer tune up on the property. When your selling it you'll want to dual paint the property(I put a third color on some homes). I personally like high end lighting in my flips. I look around for the best deals on upgraded lighting at used lighting stores or internet. I also look for discounted new lighting stores like Hinkley's and other ones. The flooring will need to be upgraded in all rooms. I like wood and tile. These are great flooring's that help show off your property! For color ideas I go to the home store and get painting flyer's some fresh ideas in my living areas. They have a lot of ideas that you may not know and they are put together by professional interior decorators. Keeping the colors in the home bright and a little different can always give you a bigger wow factor when people go through it versus other properties for sale in your area.

Land contracted or optioned homes need somewhere in between a rental and a flip. I always make the paint about the same as a flip. Where I cut some cost is in the lighting and fixtures. I still want a wow factor because the client has to put money down on the property. We like to get 3% of the purchase price which go go over $2500 in some cases. So you need to make sure that the client really likes the property. The upgrades will also help your appraisal when they go to close the transaction and hopefully put massive amounts of cash in your pocket.

As you can see there is a difference in these three types of properties and the difference saves you thousands of unneeded cash you can save for another day! If you have any questions please email me at brett@lowcostinvestmenthomes.info or you can go check out my videos at rooftopvideo.com Brett Young Valley Realty

Lighting makes a big difference in homes

I have a lot of remodels going on and I always look at ways to make the my homes look different and better than the competition. For example I looked at some of the other remodeled homes in the same area and noticed that most of them have the same color of paint in them. Basically a tan with white trim. I'm sure you seen it. Making your home look unique and have different colors may sell it quicker.

Thinking outside the box I immediately went down to the paint store to get some new ideas. They have great brochures that give you a lot of ideas in color selection. When you are looking at the different ideas always remember the age of the homes in the area. There are so many colors, never limit your self to just a few.

A great way to get other ideas on color is go through some high end open houses in high end areas. Just go get a Starbucks and start your journey. These type of homes usually have interior decorators do the designing for the home. This will give you a lot of great ideas for your remodeled home, or if you want to update your home.

Lighting is another great update. I go all over the city to find the best deals on lighting! I found one store that sells great chandelier's for 1/4 of the price of other outlets. So a light that cost $800 retail I got for $200. That is a cheap upgrade when you think about the cost of flooring, appliance and other upgrades on your home and it really stands out.

In older homes you can really knock the ball out of the park with lighting. I'm doing one in University Heights, Ohio and the home has a lot of great features. To show off those features I put in some great lighting. You do newer home the same way.Brett Young www.unrealcashflow.net

Australia Likes Cleveland Area

Saturday had a couple that flew in from Australia very nice people. We picked them up at their new investment home that they had just purchased. They were very impressed with the area and really liked the neighborhood.

We took them through the home and again they liked that and wanted to know the rehab that was going to be done in that home. They also could not believe the prices of the high quality homes in the Maple Heights area. They Lady said that she paid $500K for a home around the same size in Australia. They also informed me that their economy was really booming!

We them took them on a tour on all the cities like Euclid,Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights were we invest in and explained the cost and profit in those areas. We stopped in the Cleveland Heights area to eat at a place called "The Melt" great sandwich place. The food was excellent and the atmosphere was very edgy. Me and Tim always make sure that an investor gets a good idea of everything that areas have to offer and one is great restaurants.

They also got to meet our property manager Misho. He took some questions from them and explained how we operated. We then wrapped up our tour with a home we were working on in University Heights. On the way back the new investors decided to move forward with 6 more properties.

When you have a great products make sure you show them off every chance you get. We have a complete tour of all the cities and show some homes we are currently doing so when the clients go home they can plan their investment strategy from all the areas we recommend. Brett Young WWW.rooftopvideo.com

Cash Flow Cities Video