In a recent Roofstock Academy webinar, we got an interesting question that we were unable to address during the session. The audience member asked for words of wisdom on the topic of being a beginner and your first property is operating at a loss. When is enough enough, and when should you cut your losses?  

 

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Transcript

Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Michael:

Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my co-hosts…

 

Tom:

Tom Schneider…

 

Emil:

and Emil Shour…

 

Michael:

and today we're gonna be tackling one of the questions we got from a webinar we did recently, as part of the Roofstock Academy recently did an AMA, which is an ask me anything, and we kind of re labeled it and ask Michael anything webinar, it was a lot of fun. If you missed it, we missed you and look forward to seeing you on the next Roofstock Academy webinar. But a question we got that we didn't have time to answer during the webinar is words of wisdom to share for the first year or two, when your rental operates at a loss. How do you know when to cut your losses?

 

We saw the question, we're like, man, this is a killer question. So Emil, I am just going to farm it out to you. Because I know you got really excited about it. What do you say to folks out there that have this experience or are thinking about investing in a property and this is a concern that they have?

 

Emil:

All right, so I got excited about this because it's basically what happened with the triplex, right, I bought it in November. So the first year, November, November of 2020, most of 2021 was spent rehabbing the property, because I knew rent was under market. So you know, it's kind of in the middle of COVID, a lot of vendor issues just took us a long time to get everything done. So 2021 major loss, but now we're, we're good, we've got good tenants in there, I had to get a new property manager and we're at rents that actually, I think a little bit higher than the pro forma I had when I bought the place. So my first year too, was operating at a loss and now I feel like is going to be the true test of does the property perform. So that's my long winded way of saying, I guess it depends on how you bought it, like if you bought it turnkey, and it's operating at a loss for the first couple years. Maybe that's not the greatest time but if you bought it knowing, maybe you're gonna have to update things, you know, you knew like the roof was gonna go out sooner, some something where you knew these expenses, were going to come along, and it's fine, you know, it's going to be a loss originally. But then, hey, you're not gonna have to pay for that thing for a long time, right? You replace it and now you got a brand new age back or roof or kitchen or whatever it may be, so my answer is it depends on those factors.

 

Michael:

Love the clear cutness, the directness, Tom, your thoughts man jumping in.

 

Tom:

I think in making decisions, like you should try, like as much as possible to like, have it like already kind of like set up in advance. So perhaps there's like thresholds, you can kind of set on expectations? I mean, this might be a little bit like unrealistic for this scenario. So I'm gonna change my answer, I'm gonna say, I think, like, strategy wise, like, are you planning for like a longer, longer term buy and hold? Like, if that's the case, you know, the initial kind of like, upfront expenses, perhaps it's stuff that we're going to happen anyways, like, it was kind of like a