Buying a multi family for my disabled mother-in-law

[James Terry]

Hi all, I am a limited experience investor. My wife and I own 2 SFRs in Southern California- one is our primary residence, the other is in Palm Springs and we rent it out using Airbnb / VRBO. The latter property has been quite successful and supports itself and hen some. 2 weeks ago my mother-in-law fell off her bed in her senior community apartment and broke her arm. She has been in the hospital with surgery and then to an assisted care facility. However she freaked out on day 2 in the facility and did not want to be there so now she is splitting time between my house and my brother-in-law. We see 2 options - building a place for her in one of our garages, or I wanted to buy a duplex and have her live in one half while we live in the other. Does anyone else think this is a good idea or bad idea? I am trying to convince the family that this is the best course of action rather than shelling out $4k a month for her to be in a facility she's going to hate anyways. Our budget is around $600k. I wouldn't be opposed to going higher if we got a triplex or 4 plex so the additional income can help with the mortgage. The other consideration is can I kick out the other tenants if I want to move her in plus us as an owner occupied 5% down loan? I want to do this to minimize my cash investment. She had $60k in savings but I don't want to use that if at all possible (maybe for renovations) but we want to be able to move to another property and expand our portfolio in a couple of years and don't want the family to feel like she paid for that place just to our benefit. Any help would be greatly appreciated, and if anyone is a real estate agent that could help us too that would be great. We have identified quite a few properties that meet our criteria. This is my first post to BP so thank you all in advance. -Jim

[Andy F.]

Hi James:

I feel any excuse to buy another property is great! That said, would a property you are thinking about be located in California? I ask because one factor in landlording is always going to be eviction laws.  Evicting tenants in Cali is brutal. But the bigger factors are the personal and family factors. 

If you can work it out so caring for your mother-in-law does not create undue stress for the family while she lives in an apartment you own I'm all for it. To do that, you should figure the cost of having outside caregivers come in to help her. Otherwise your family will end up full time caregivers (now and probably later as well). This is much harder on the caregiver than the patient. Honestly. If the numbers work with an outside caregiver helping (a fourplex or larger makes that likely) and you can stomach the occasional lengthy eviction process, I personally feel it's a great idea imho.

If you decide to invest in Utah I am a very experienced Landlord/investor here and I'm happy to chat more about that as well. 

Good Luck With All,

Andy