Buy or Build apartments in Los Angeles

[Kevin Kozicki]

Hello!

New to bigger pockets and just started really looking at real estate as an investment. Looking primarily at getting a piece of property with 3 or 4 units. Potentially able to add another unit without too much difficulty, somewhere within Pasadena/Glendale to stay out of rent control. Being based out of LA is making a lot of searching, really not fit into the 2% rule. But I'm new and still sort of lost.

I've started to look at land parcel's available around these areas and I am just wondering if you can make a greater investment by building vs buying something. It seems if you build it out into a proper modern small set of apartments, you can avoid any big maintenance issues for a long time, as well as making something highly desirable/and therefore priced accordingly. 

I just have no idea on the actual costs of building a home, but it seems if you buy a piece of land you should be able to build something for less than what a lot of the already built houses go for here, it being such a largely inflated priced market. Building also opens the opportunities on location as it avoids rent control all together.

Just wanted to see if anyone else has any info or experience with numbers.