How to Calculate Real Estate Rehab Profits

If you are investing in real estate you will face a variety of challenges. First you have to find the right property. Finding the right property is a combination of personal preferences and opportunities involved in a real estate deal. My most important real estate investment principle is; "You make money with real estate when you buy the property not when you sell it". This means that I wouldn't touch a rehab property where the purchase price is not below 65%-70% of the market value.

Why do you need such a low price to make it work? This is quite simple. A common guideline among investors is that you must make at least $10,000 to make it worthwhile. Remember you're an investor and not a handyman. Rehab projects last typically 4-6 months, sometimes even longer. You don't want to end up making minimum wage as a handyman after the project is done. Quite frankly this is not uncommon for first time investors.

Real estate investment is all about numbers. If the numbers are right you must make every mistake in the book to turn your project into a financial disaster. That's why you must buy the property as cheap as possible. Selling the property is your least problem. First you have to put together a budget. Here's a little example.

Property A is located in a decent neighborhood with average home resale values of $150,000. That's what our property will appraise after the repairs are done. We also take out a hard money loan with 4 points and 12% (interest only) for 100% of the purchase price. We calculate that the property will sell for $150,000 in 6 months. There are about $10,000 in repairs you have to take care of.

Property A

Purchase Price $100,000

Purchase Closing Cost $8,000 (fees + 4 points)

Holding Cost $6,000 (6 months of interest)

Repair Cost $10,000

Insurance, Utilities $2,000 (you need a vacant property insurance which is more expensive)

Selling Closing Cost $13,000 (6% realtor fee of $150,000 + closing cost)

Total $139,000

Selling Price $150,000

Expenses -$139,000

Total Profit $11,000

This is just a very simple example, but I hope you get the picture. Keeping track of the numbers is essential in real estate investment. In the example above just imagine what happens if you spend more money for the repairs or you have to sell the property for less money. Even worst if you can't sell the property within 6 months and after 9 months you sell it for less money. Not only did you loose on the selling price you had 3 months of interest piling up as well.

When you're investing in rehab properties you have to have an exit strategy. My exit strategy is, to rent the house and refinance the hard money loan if I can't sell the property after 6 months for the price I'm asking for. This will cover my monthly expenses and I have more time to sell the property when the market is better. Actually converting a rehab property into a rental can be a very profitable choice of real estate investment. Friends of mine are doing quite well with this strategy.

Bottom-line; crunch the numbers, make a budget, keep track of your expenses and have an exit strategy. Having this in place you're good to go.

Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn more about real estate investments at http://www.suncoastrenttoown.com or send a blank email to mailto:suncoastrenttoown@getresponse.com

There is something emotionally charged about the buying and selling of New York high-end real estate. How else to explain the juggernaut of reality TV shows about high-end brokers?

After 30 years of marriage, Sharon and Michael Newman decided it was finally time to move from the Catskills to New York City.

On blocks near Kissena Park streets are quiet, houses are small, and the electricity that charges the atmosphere in downtown Flushing is nowhere to be found.

A five-story, seven-bedroom house in Brooklyn Heights has sweeping views of New York Harbor and the Manhattan skyline.

Demand is so intense that there are waiting lists in some buildings, and a few landlords report that eager renters are even bidding up rents.

Sales at the very high end of the market barely missed a beat in the recession. But that prosperity hasn’t yet trickled down.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

For a century, Roosevelt Island housed a grim penitentiary. It was demolished in the 1930s.

More borrowers are opting for fixed-rate loans with terms other than the standard 30 or 15 years, especially when it comes to refinancings.

Two more glass skyscrapers are added to a group of towers on the waterfront of Long Island City.

Insurance coverage for a co-op unit; when a tenant is ‘blacklisted’; a co-op is smaller than estimated.

The market for $500,000-to-$600,000 houses in Westchester has become especially active.

A shaky real estate market means more sellers are providing buyer concessions, from gift cards to help with paying property taxes.

Houses of worship are adaptable to residential and other uses as congregations dwindle.

Nearly two million Americans could benefit from mortgage relief from the nation’s biggest banks, as part of a broad government settlement to be announced on Thursday.

A cold war-era satellite relay station is for sale in California after a Silicon Valley mogul gave up on plans to turn it into a weekend home.

How can I make my front porch more appealing to buyers?

Court hearings meant to protect New York homeowners from foreclosure are hopelessly slowed by endless paperwork and requests for additional information.

The Bay Area and Silicon Valley expect the windfall from the Facebook stock offering to make their in-demand region even hotter.

The house, designed by the architect Eric Fisher, looms over the street like a big industrial arm.

A town house in Dallas, a midcentury modern in Rhode Island and a Tudor in Denver.

Prices in some parts of the country are still off by as much as 25 percent from their 2007 peak.

Trinity Church is the largest landlord in Hudson Square and is part of the effort to rezone the area to residential from manufacturing.

Rising oil prices and a boom in shale exploration are leading companies to add office space in the Houston area, most notably Exxon Mobil.

Ms. de França is the president and chief executive of Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, which focuses on new residential developments.

Meet the real estate broker’s interns: an ambitious group willing to do anything, earn nothing and wake up early on a Sunday to fluff the couch cushions at open houses.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

Homes in Dallas, Rhode Island and Denver.

Compare the cost of renting and buying equivalent homes.

For recently divorced men, a new breed of decorators offers help navigating a strange new world.

Plants that light up the winter garden can be found at Broken Arrow Nursery in Connecticut, which has long been a favorite of gardening geeks.

A sister in need drew the painter Beverly McIver back home to North Carolina, unaware that a new beginning was in store for both of them.

A jewelry designer finds striking new objects for storage.

Timothy Sakamoto and Jochen Repolust are part of the small but growing niche making mobile apps focused on specific works of architecture.

To promote an auction of 20th- and 21st-century design, the interior designer Stephen Sills has created a preview exhibition in an apartment at the Apthorp.

Fishs Eddy now sells plates acquired from the archives of the now-defunct Syracuse China Corporation, many more than 100 years old.

The designer Russell Greenberg creates custom baby rattles with ends shaped like profiles of mom and dad.