The agent gets paid for every tenant
Tenants change roughly every two years, and the agent charges a fee for each new one. On an apartment renting for $1,500 a month that is 5 × $1,500 = $7,500 over 10 years, or 60% of what the apartment nets you in its first year.
Straight Talk from a Realtor · a 2-minute read
When you buy an apartment to rent out, you picture one tenant. Tidy, with a good job, moving in the first month and staying for years. Just like the brochure.
Tenants do not read brochures. They change jobs, get married, get divorced, move away. Nobody knows exactly how long one tenant stays, so Levelvale assumes two years by default. Then you look for a tenant again, and you call the agent again.
That line is missing from the sales brochure. The agent does not charge you for the apartment. The agent charges you for every new tenant. In Georgia the fee is usually one month's rent, and the owner pays it. First tenant found: one month's rent. Second tenant two years later: another month.
Let us count it on a $200,000 apartment renting for $1,500 a month, the same one as in our article on yield. The tenant changes every two years: the first moves in during year one, the next ones in years three, five, seven and nine. Five tenants in 10 years, five fees:
For comparison: after all costs and taxes, this apartment nets you $12,510 in the first year. Ten years of fees equal 60% of that sum. And that is before the empty month between tenants, which is a separate line and costs another $1,500 at every changeover.
You can skip the agent. Then you answer the calls yourself, show the apartment in the evenings and check the paperwork. If you live in another country, you pay with your time and your nerves, and sometimes with empty months.
A good agent can pay for themselves by finding a tenant faster. You just need to see this line before you buy, not at the third changeover.
Next time somebody quotes you "a 10% yield", ask one question: "Where is the agent's fee for the second tenant? And the third?" The pause before the answer will tell you more than the number in the ad.
The full breakdown with taxes, vacancy and repairs: The "10% yield" apartment: what you really get to keep
Run the numbers before you sign. The Levelvale calculator already counts an agent for every new tenant. Enter your own rent and see what is left.
The calculator with this property's figures
The same calculation as on the home page. Change any figure — the answer recounts.
REAL ESTATE I YIELD I TAXES · Levelvale
Sources
This is a calculation, not investment, tax or legal advice.
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