Where Are the Best Prospects for Buying Rental Properties?

Any investor who wants to be a landlord is constantly on the search for rental properties that yield a high cash-on-cash return. The sellers of these properties, essentially tired landlords can be found in a number of places.

Rental properties do not generally trade on a potential price appreciation basis as do single family homes. Yes, rents can be increased and the cash flow increase will correlate into a higher sale price sometime in the future. But this appreciation is limited by competitive rents in the area. It is therefore important that an investor looking to buy rental income properties get the best possible deal when he initially buys the property.

The conventional way to find multi-family income properties is to go to the multiple listings and look for properties for sale. Sometimes landlords simply put a for sale sign in the yard of the property or run an ad in a local newspaper trying to sell it themselves and save a real estate commission. The best source of multi-family rental properties comes from frustrated landlords.

Motivated landlords are everywhere because the average landlord only stays a landlord for about 3 ½ years. By this time he has had at least two turnovers of tenants and if he had three units, he came in contact with 6 - 8 tenants. Some of these tenants have to be bad tenants even when the landlord screens them carefully. Ultimately, the landlord becomes a distressed landlord and wants out.

Once the landlord is close to his emotional breaking point with tenants, he will have had to evict some of them. This eviction process includes a court appearance which further aggravates the landlord's emotional state. If the tenant is represented by an attorney, the landlord may have more legal costs than he ever imagined.

This court appearance for the eviction hearing is the time for an investor to approach the landlord as a buyer of rental properties. This is when the landlord is very motivated to have someone (the investor) solve his problem and is more open to accepting a reasonable offer for his property. If the landlord is represented by an attorney at the eviction hearing, give him your business card and tell him you need more rental properties. This attorney can be a great source of referrals because he deals with landlords when they are most distressed.

As a final note, if you want passive เช่าคอนโด เอกมัย income from rental units, the most successful way is to hire a management company to take care of all the chores and tasks associated with landlording. These include, but are not limited to, collecting rents, evicting tenants and screening and signing leases with new renters. The cost of a property management company is usually based on the gross rental income per month and can be as little as 5% and as much as 15% with an industry average of 8.5%. A good management company is worth its weight in gold!