Property price question

[Farakh Zaman]

Hey All,

So this is my first post on here and am a relatively new to RE.  We own a home we rent out now, but other than that we are just getting started.

I have been looking at multi-family properties in the mid-west and found a six unit that looked interesting.  

As I have been doing my analysis and research, I came across what the current owner paid for the property.  Digging into it, it doesn't appear he has done much renovations over last 5 years of ownership but he is asking quite a high price (which I guess is what you do when you're selling).  He bought it at 140K, probably put 50K into it over the last five years, and is asking 410K.  The area has appreciated about 28% over the last 5 years, which means the property should really be in the 180K neighborhood.  

I also understand that multi-units are different than SFH's so my question is, how do you determine a realistic price. 410K for that area would only provide about 4% CoC which is not worth it to us obviously.

I don't want to be the guy that lowballs it and isn't taken seriously, however, I also don't want to overpay.

Anyone have any experience in this type of situation?  My initial instinct was to just double what he paid for it, but that probably is not a reasonable approach either.

Any insights and comments are appreciated.

Cheers,

FZ