Wednesday, March 07, 2012

A very short vacancy

As mentioned in the monthly review, one of our properties became vacant at the end of February. I have already found a new tenant who will move in mid month meaning that I have only a two week vacancy (which is about the best that can be reasonably expected). It also means that we have only two weeks to complete the tidy up work - repaint, new fridge, replace one airconditioning unit, fix some wiring, new blinds, polish floor, replace one door and a few other things. It's quite a long list and will chew up a couple of months rent but the previous tenant had been in for six years so, to a large extent, this is catch up.

The new rent is about 9% higher than what the previous tenant was paying.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just wondering, why not sell the flats and buy some good REITs with good assets like Link or Champion, for a better yield and less time needed to look after the properties/find tenants/maintain etc?

traineeinvestor said...

Hi

Right now the REITs do offer better yields and (last time I checked) you would be buying at a discount to NAV and facing much lower transaction costs. As you say, there is also the absence of the time I need to spend managing them. However, leaving aside the fact that the REITS invest invest in different types of properties (commercial, office) there is also the gearing factor - I can control the amount of debt used - and the security of owning atangible asset.
If I was buying today, I probably would look to the REITs instead of physical property but am happy holding what I have rather than incur the expense of changing.
Cheers
traineeinvestor