STRATEGY
TURNKEY INVESTING
Near (or Far) From Home
WHEN (AND WHERE) TURNKEY INVESTING IS YOUR BEST MOVE.
by Jared Garfield
I
f you're thinking of invest- ing in a rental this year, it's
cash-flow positive markets, but this often means investing out-of- state. Busy professionals will likely find buying foreclosures or buying properties from motivated sellers out-of-state to be time consuming, complicated, and even risky. But if investing out-of-state feels right, when is turnkey investing a sound move and when should you avoid it?
ready for tenants to move in, (insert the key if you will) and start living and pay- ing rent in your investment property. To qualify as a proper turnkey property, the home should be ren- ovated in a manner that has appli- cants competing to lease it. Look for properties with low-maintenance features like luxury vinyl plank instead of carpet; granite instead of laminate counter tops; and brick exteriors, when possible, for lower painting expenses. Ideally, light fixtures should be new, kitchens and bathrooms should be recently renovated, and interior and exterior paint should be freshly done. You'll want new or almost-new appliances, and the roof should have
difficult to ignore the news about soaring home prices - especially in those markets where rentals are most needed. How can an investor operate in a place like San Francis- co, where the average home price is already over a million dollars? How many people can afford the rent you would need? And who will want to, once the crash comes? The last two decades of real estate investing have brought extreme highs as well as serious market corrections. Today, what should in- vestors do if they find local prices are making positive cash flow impossi- ble? Investors can, of course, choose
WHAT TURNKEY IS (ANDWHAT IT ISN’T)
Buying a turnkey property doesn’t mean a property will be like a new home. Often good rental properties can be 20, 30, or 40 years old, or older. Turnkey means that the property is
80 | think realty magazine :: may / june 2019
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