About to make an offer on my first Multifamily house hack

[Jeremy G.]

Hi Everyone, I'm very new to all of this and need a little bit of advice.

I am currently working with a real estate agent that I know personally, I will be her first multi family purchase shes new to real estate but has a mentor at her company that has been doing it for decades and provides a lot of assistance though she isn't available very often so we are sometimes on our own and learning as we go.

I have been renting the same place for the past 10 years and the owner is selling so now I have to find another place to live, instead of renting for over 1k/month I decided to purchase a multi family, at first I was looking for duplexes but then came across a 3 unit the asking price is 180k, it is two 3 bedrooms and one 2 bedroom, it has a 2 car attached garage, washer & dryer hookups in each unit, newer heating systems tenants pay all their own utilities except sewer and water which is roughly 2k per year the house also has 3 seperate large storage areas above the garage, and it also has a decent sized back yard. 2 tenants have been there for over a decade in the 3 bedroom units and 1 tenant has been in the 2 bedroom for about 6 months. I would live in the 2 bedroom with just my daughter and I.

All 3 units are on a month to month basis and renting for only...... $160/week so the 2 bedroom is paying the same amount as the 3 bedrooms,the owner has included the garages and storage for free with all the tenants rents. looking in the area we are finding no 3 bedrooms available and 1 and 2 bedrooms renting for $750-1200/month with no washer N dryer hook ups and no storage. My agent is confident we can get the property for around 165k due to local comps and how long its been on the market (half a year). My mortgage will be roughly $1500/mo and at the current well below market rents I will not cover the mortgage, so they must be raised I am confident I could ask $1k/mo per unit or add an additional $70/week to the current rents, But i also want to try to find a way to remove the storage and garage bays from the tenants so I can rent them out and make additional income. These people have had it made for so long I hope they are expecting changes. How would you guys go about this? gradually increasing rents? or just rip off the band aid and do it all right away?

any advice on this situation is greatly appreciated!