sirajmoosa
03-17-2007, 05:22 AM
When investing in real estate, it is highly desirable to achieve positive cash flow on a month-to-month basis. This is true even if you are counting on property value appreciation to supply the bulk of your desired return on investment. If you are losing money month-to-month, you may find all of your eventual profits eaten up by the monthly drain on your income. This will be particularly true if there is a downturn in property values for a few years.
Worse yet, you may tire of the monthly outflow of cash, and you may give up on the property before you have a chance to achieve the desired appreciation. You will be much more comfortable waiting for your property to appreciate if you are making at least some money every month, or at least not losing money every month.
One exception to this rule is when you are purchasing a property to fix it up and flip it. While you are fixing it up, you may not be able to rent it out at all (depending on how extensive the work is) or you may have to rent it at reduced rates. The negative cash flow is just part of the expense of rehabilitating the property and will be quickly reversed by your profits upon sale of the property. This assumes that you have properly calculated all of your costs and you have purchased the right property.
(http://www.siraj-realestate.com)
Worse yet, you may tire of the monthly outflow of cash, and you may give up on the property before you have a chance to achieve the desired appreciation. You will be much more comfortable waiting for your property to appreciate if you are making at least some money every month, or at least not losing money every month.
One exception to this rule is when you are purchasing a property to fix it up and flip it. While you are fixing it up, you may not be able to rent it out at all (depending on how extensive the work is) or you may have to rent it at reduced rates. The negative cash flow is just part of the expense of rehabilitating the property and will be quickly reversed by your profits upon sale of the property. This assumes that you have properly calculated all of your costs and you have purchased the right property.
(http://www.siraj-realestate.com)