Brick Underground’s Buy Curious column recently turned to Neeta Mulgaokar, an Associate Broker for Mirador Real Estate, for her expertise on buying property. The column weighed the pros and cons of the question, “Should you buy a home with a tenant in place?” As Neeta explains, the answer depends on a number of factors regarding the apartment, the tenant, and the purchaser. Here, she explains the potential advantages of saying “Yes”:
“If the property is an investment, a tenant in place could be fantastic,” says Mulgaokar. That obviously depends on “what terms the tenant has agreed to and whether the tenant has a history of being a quality tenant,” she says, explaining that “quality is objective and depends upon whether the tenant has historically paid rent on time, followed the building’s rules, and/or maintains the condition of the apartment.”
Furthermore, Mulgaokar says that “an investor should analyze whether these criteria are being met in addition to whether the tenant is paying market rent. If the rent is under market but the quality of the renter is high, the investor should make a cost-benefit judgement call as to what is most important in the long run.”
For more advice on purchasing homes with existing tenants, read the rest of the article here.