Monthly Portfolio Report: January 2023
One of my goals with Rental Income Advisors is to be as transparent and data-driven as possible with my readers and my coaching clients. I think the best way to build confidence in a new investor is to actually show the numbers, to prove that rental property investing really does work as advertised.
For those reasons, I publish a monthly report on my portfolio’s performance. I hope that this chronological history paints a clear picture of what it’s like to be a remote landlord. It’s also a great exercise for me to be sure I’m staying plugged in to all my numbers.
Here is the update for January 2023. You can also check out all my previous monthly reports and annual reports.
Property Overview
Of the new properties I’ve recently purchased (including Property #20, Property #21, and Property #22 — more new Property Spotlights coming soon), I had one that was still in search of a resident as of last month’s update. Fortunately, that vacancy has been filled, so I’m officially at 100% occupancy to start our 2023. We always love that, of course!
My full occupancy will be short-lived, unfortunately. This is because my final new property (Property #25) closed in January, which means it will be rolled into my numbers as of my February monthly report. And it is still in search of a tenant, so I’ll have another vacancy on the books as of next month.
Rental Income
Collections were perfect this month. Once my final vacancy is filled, my monthly rent roll could increase to over $28,000, which would be a high water mark for my portfolio.
Expenses
This screenshot comes from RentalHero, the online accounting tool I use for my portfolio.
Here are the highlights with my expenses this month:
Mortgage: I made my first mortgage payment for the four new properties that closed in November, so my monthly costs have increased and reflect my new baseline going forward.
Property Management: In addition to my normal costs, this includes a lease renewal fee of $250, and a leasing fee for placing a new tenant at Property #23 — this is 50% of one month’s rent, or $550 in this case.
Maintenance & Repairs: Issues this month included a roof repair, an electrical box replacement, a leak, a garage door, several occupied home inspections, and a few other small issues. Due to the changes I made in my maintenance & repair cost expectations (as discussed in my 2022 Annual Report), I now budget for just over $3,000 in monthly repair costs across my portfolio. So I’m below that budgeted amount this month — but remember I need to “bank” that extra money to pay for more expensive months, i.e. when I have property turnovers.
Utilities: This covered the utilities while some of my new homes were vacant before tenants moved in. About $200 of this is a connection fee that will eventually be refunded from the local utility when the tenants put down their own deposit.
HOA Fees: Two of my new properties (Property #24, and the newly closed Property #25) are — wait for it - condos! There are a lot of reasons why condos don’t make great rental properties, a topic I wrote a full article about. But these properties are a unique situation that I’ll discuss in detail in the Property Spotlights for those units, and those unique circumstances should ensure that these are successful long-term investments. The monthly HOA for each is $70, so you’ll see that in my monthly expenses going forward.
Tenant Chargeback: I discussed this charge last month, which was to flush kitchen grease from the plumbing of one of my properties. My PM charged this to the tenant, and I was reimbursed this month when the tenant made that payment — thus the “negative expense”.
The Bottom Line
My financial model currently projects my Memphis portfolio to generate $8,455 of positive cash flow in an average month — a bit lower than last month due to the changed I made to my modeling of maintenance & repair expenses, as discussed above. This month, my cash flow was $10,329, nearly $2K ahead of my projected average. This overage was driven by lower-than-budgeted expenses, full occupancy, and by the lack of any “one off” insurance or tax payments on my un-mortgaged properties.
Finally, here’s the running tally and graph I update each month. The dotted blue line indicates my projected average monthly cash flow for my portfolio in each given month. We’re off to a solid start in 2023:
Free Rental Property Analyzer
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About the Author
Hi, I’m Eric! I used cash-flowing rental properties to leave my corporate career at age 39. I started Rental Income Advisors in 2020 to help other people achieve their own goals through real estate investing.
My blog focuses on learning & education for new investors, and I make numerous tools & resources available for free, including my industry-leading Rental Property Analyzer.
I also now serve as a coach to dozens of private clients starting their own journeys investing in rental properties, and have helped my clients buy millions of dollars (and counting) in real estate. To chat with me about coaching, schedule a free initial consultation.
