Vacancy factor of 5% means that you expect your unit to be vacant no more than 18 days per year. When you have tenant turnover, will you be able to do all the cosmetic fixups you always need to do and put a new tenant in place within 18 days? I think this is a bit unrealistic. Renters who are previous renters have to give their landlord 30 days notice. This means that they will move out of their unit near the end of the month in order to move into yours near the beginning of the next month. Expect at least one month vacancy per year so use one month rent as your vacancy allowance. Professional property managers in your area can tell you what their vacancy experience is with similar properties in the same neighborhood. If their experience is three months, then use three months rent for your vacancy allowance.
Repairs fix things that break. When things break is always unplanned and unscheduled. The things that break are almost always plumbing, electrical, or an appliance. You just have to guess how much it may cost to replace a garbage disposal, repair a shorted light fixture, or fix a leaky faucet. A ten percent repair allowance may be too conservative, but you have no history with other properties to project a more accurate number.
Maintenance, upkeep, and cleaning are planned events and their cost can be readily predicted. If you have tenant turnover every year, expect to do touchup painting every year, and completely repaint the interior every five to seven years (maybe sooner if your tenants are smokers). Exterior painting with a good weather resistant paint should last five years. Expect to do a thorough house cleaning every time a tenant vacates. I plan about $200 per year for touchup painting, $1200 - $1800 for a complete interior painting. House cleaning runs me about $150 per year.
Things you need to do regularly that the tenants will never handle on their own are changing furnace filters and replacing smoke detector batteries. Just plan to have a semi-annual HVAC checkup and let the maintenance technicians change filters (I pay about $175 per year for this). Plan to have a professional fire protection service check and tag fire extinguishers every year and replace all smoke detector batteries (I pay about $60 per year for this).
Since your property is a townhouse, expect to need routine pest control treatment. You may have the cleanest tenants in the world, but you have no control over your neighbors and the bug infestation that they may spread. I pay about $60 per quarter for a pest control treatment.
So, adding up all the numbers, I would allow $200 for touchup painting, $150 for cleaning, $175 for HVAC service. $360 for complete interior painting, $60 for fire prevention, and $240 for pest control, giving me $1185 in annual maintenance costs or about $99 per month rounded up. If your HOA does not take care of the exterior painting, then add something more for periodic exterior painting.
Replacement reserve is what you need to tap when you have a major replacement. Roof replacement could be $10K, new HVAC about $6000, carpet replacement about $3000. Expect a new roof to last 25 years, a new HVAC should last 12 years, carpet replacement is a function of wear and tear but will probably need to be done every seven years or sooner. If these numbers are reasonably accurate for your area, and if all your major systems are brand new, then allow $111 per month as a maintenace reserve contribution. If your systems have some age and will need replacement sooner, you need to increase your monthly contribution to ensure that you have the money on hand to handle the major system replacements as they come up.
Property management. Even though you plan to start out managing the property yourself, you will still have costs. It costs you time and money to show the property to every prospective tenant, advertise the property for rent, run a credit check, a landlord check, a reference check, and verify employment. If the tenants are late on rent, there are court costs for filing and serving an eviction notice. If this property is owned by your LLC, then you will have legal fees every time your tenant appears in court or skips on rent and you want a judgment. At some point in time, you will probably want to turn this over to a professional property manager. During your holding period, you will have to conduct maintenance inspections and have to schedule and supervise contractors doing work in your property/. Suggest you allow 10% for management costs even if you self-manage.
