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 April 2021.

Property Overview

All properties were occupied this month, except for Property #7 which was in the middle of a pretty nasty tenant turnover. (If you missed last month’s update, you can read all the gory details about that turn here.)

It was pretty painful, but it’s all good news now: the rehab is complete and looks great, the colony of 30,000+ honeybees was relocated, and the tenant has moved in at a rent that’s $125/mo. higher than the previous tenant was paying.

And there’s MORE good news: after a protracted negotiation with my insurance provider, I was able to recoup almost $4,000 of the cost of the rehab. This was the first time I’ve I’ve actually had to USE my insurance, and I learned a ton. I’m planning a future blog post to describe the journey in detail — there were a lot of twists and turns, and it was quite instructive.

Rents

Over 99% on my collections this month. The only shortfall came from Property #2, where a tenant facing an eviction was able to get help from a local rental assistance program intended to help struggling tenants stay in their homes during the pandemic. The program offered me 80% of the rent for the two months (March and April) the tenant owed, in exchange for terminating the eviction and allowing the tenant to start over with a clean slate. I happily agreed to this arrangement.

The tenant has not yet paid May rent, however, so we’ll see whether they continue to rely on this assistance program, or if they’ll be able to pay the rent themselves. If neither of those things happens, the tenant will unfortunately face eviction once more.

Expenses

Pretty quiet month in terms of expenses — just my fixed Mortgage and Property Management costs, plus:

Maintenance & Repairs: Nothing unusual here — just regular service calls for plumbing issues , a garage door, HVAC, along with a few annual inspections from my property manager.
Utilities: My final utility bill during the vacancy/turn at Property #7.

The Bottom Line

My financial model currently projects my Memphis portfolio to generate $6,286 of positive cash flow in an average month. In April, the positive cash flow was $7,489, more than $1,200 better than that projected average.

May is also shaping up to a be a strong month, because I’ll get the above-mentioned insurance payment on top of my normal cash flow. This should help to offset some of the downside I experienced in March.

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. Definitely pretty choppy month-to-month so far this year, but I’m confident the projected average will hold up in the long run.

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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.