New Duplex in Alaska

[Jesse Hastings]

Good Evening All,

I'm pretty new to this forum but i've read up on quite a few posts... My question is should I wait or buy now ... I'm looking at duplex's in Anchorage AK. My wife and I are in the military and I am tired of wasting our housing allowance on renting. The problem is, most duplex's up here at the moment are going for $480k-530k. Thats kinda steep and a little discouraging for a new investor. The bright side is you can rent it out for $2k - 2.5k. pretty comfortably. We are using the VA loan so we don't have to worry about PMI but that also means we are putting 0 down.

Do you guys/gals think this is a trap and I should be careful or keep digging? The Cap rate if I was living in it looks to be around 6.7% and if I move out and rent both units it jumps up to 11.1%. The payment would be roughly $3.3k a month. They are newer duplexes so repair costs would be minimal and the house is still under warranty. 

Thank you for the advise!

J. Hastings

[James Cash]

If you can go fourplex, do it!

If you are trying to find the middle ground, duplex isn't bad. It is much better than starting out as a SFH with a VA loan.

Good news is, you still have an FHA loan to play around with after living at your property for a year.