converting apartment house into 4 unit?

[Jim Burns]

Is it possible to convert a>4 unit apartment house into a 4 unit? Its not much bigger. Would I be able to do it during the purchase and possibly obtain traditional financing? is this only something that can be done after purchasing with a commercial loan? Also has anyone had success using a 203(k) to convert in this fashion? Thanks for the responses, -jim

[Steve Babiak]

Bill,

I think he's asking about going in the other direction, not from 1 unit to multi-unit, but rather from more than 4 units down to 4 units.

Zoning should already be in place for the number of units (I hope, or else you might have to limit to number of units permitted by zoning). Reducing the number of units probably won't change the zoning. You'd probably still be needing commercial financing (since residential is for 1 to 4 zoned units, and this one would still be zoned for more).