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