Vacancies

People ask me all the time "what about finding tenants?" Well, If you chose the right kind of properties in the right areas you will never have a shortage of good tenants who want to rent your units. If your units are clean, safe, updated, you will be ahead of most of them out there. Even in times of high vacancy, yours will fill up first, and will stay filled the longest.

Remember, buy with the eyes of a tenant. Ignore the things you know you can fix, but look at each unit as if you will be moving in. I'm talking here mostly about neighborhoods and layouts. Picture the unit after fix-up. Would you want to live in it? Is it functional? Or are there hard to fix layout problems, like a bathroom that you have to access through a bedroom (though should be fine in a smaller one bedroom or bachelor), or a kitchen with the sink or refrigerator in another room?

Remember, you don't wan't a place where you have to do major renos to fix layout issues (unless it's a screamin' deal!)