Should I buy? Need major advice

[Wyatt Anderson]

Short back story, my brother convinced me to start in real estate in 2020 right after I sold my house. Been looking (1/8 to quartered assed) for a couple years now. This just fell into my lap, by him…..

I completely trust my brother (just want to make that clear). He just bought this one side of a duplex, he was waiting for the neighbor to want to sell and try to buy the other half (older lady). He also owns a business and has lately been thinking to sell his business by next year and start something completely different. As you can see this fell into my lap, because as he was about to put it back on market he thought of me and asked me first. Of course I got excited and ran to the opportunity. My wife and I checked it out today and it’s small for us, 950 sqft. If it was just us, too easy but it’s not. I have my wife, 2 little girls (4&1), and just found out a 3 baby on the way. It’s 2 bed 2 bath with an unfinished basement.

I did the numbers and they aren't great. Cash flow would be $111 and Cash on cash ROI would be 2.226% if I put a tenant in it (of course this is a guy that has never owned real estate property so number could be off). But if we live in it, the mortgage would roughly be $1,150. Which is totally affordable for us and we could fix it up a bit more.

The reason why I say all this is because I am transitioning out of the military after 9 1/2 years. Going from a very guaranteed paycheck to “I really hope someone hires me in the profession I’m looking into.” I’m thinking let’s move in and make this work for now, not a forever home, 3 years max (plus this is where she wants to live, this town and this school district). My wife left the house crying and said “don’t ever take me back there again.”

Am I thinking about this wrong or is there a better way to explain this to her? I want her to be on board and its hard for me to explain to her we can’t have the 2 story house with a big red door and a swing on the tree yet. It’s unfortunate but it’ll help us keep our head above water and get us into real estate.