Have You Heard Of Splitting Duplexes?

[Sean Gribbons]

Hey BP people, we just closed out our newest project and wanted to share some details with you. This was a very unique situation that turned out awesome for everyone involved. 

We purchased a duplex for $420,000 (both sides) in the Denver metro area. We put around $30,000 into the property for updates and fixes. We then hired a surveyor to survey the property so we could perform a duplex split. Once we had the survey everything was sent off to a lawyer to have new legals and a party wall agreement made. Once that's completed we sent it off to the assessors office to be split officially.

 By performing the split we are able to then resell each side of the duplex individually. This can be very advantageous for investors. In many real estate markets multi family price per square foot is lower than attatched single family price per square foot. Meaning that just by changing the property from one single address property  into two individuals properties it raises the price per square foot. After completing the split we ended up selling both sides combined for $595,000. Multiple offers sold at $5k over asking within 72 hours of list (could just be my awesome marketing and sales skills too). 

Not only was this project quick with little risk but we are also helping the demand for affordable housing here in Denver. 

This can be a great strategy for investors who are having a hard time scoring deals. 

Some things you will really want to make sure of:

• Cities requirements for duplex splits.
• Counties requirements for duplex splits.
• Assessors requirements and their time frame for completing the split and recording legals.
• Duplex price vs attatched single family price.
• Party wall agreement.

Let me know your thoughts... is anyone else already doing this? How has your experience been so far?