Owner Occupant Needing Unit Vacant

[Danielle J.]

I am currently looking to buy my first multifamily unit and having a hard time finding sellers willing to make a unit available for me to owner occupy. I am currently looking for a triplex or quad and most of the properties I am interested in are fully occupied. When my real estate agent contacts the listing agent they usually say that the seller is not willing to vacate a unit for me to occupy, which is creating huge barrier in my owner occupy strategy of starting out in real estate. I initially did not think that it would be a challenge to get sellers to work with me on this, but maybe I'm asking them to do too much... idk.

I am interested in suggestions for motivating a seller to render a unit vacant upon closing. Has anyone else faced a similar challenge? I need solutions :)

[Jean Bolger]

Well, you can't just "boot someone out", you are legally obligated to honor the leases that are in place when you buy. But you may be able to time your closing so that one of the leases ends at time that is convenient for you and you have time to give appropriate notice to the tenant that they won't be renewed (here that would be 30 days, I'm pretty sure). If the tenants are on month to month leases this is less of a problem