Should I invest in Townhouse or Duplex?

[Mandar A.]

Hi fellow BP bloggers,

I am a newbie to this site but I feel like in short time itself I have learnt a lot from this site. This site is definitely a good resource for investors. My primary purpose for joining BP was to learn more about rental property investment. Currently I am looking at buying my first rental property investment. Lately I have been looking at few properties and so far I have narrowed it down to two properties. One of them is a 4 bed/1bath Townhouse while the other one is a Duplex (1bed/1bath on each floor). Both of them almost have same asking price. The duplex already has tenants in them so it will start cashflowing right away. The townhouse is not yet rented but looks to be in good shape and should be able to get tenant(according to my agent). When I ran the approximate numbers for both properties using an online calculator Duplex has a higher cashflow than the townhouse(roughly 100 dollars more per month). I am looking for a property that will have good cashflow with lower vacancy rate.

My question is do you guys have suggestions on which one may be better rental investment long term - a duplex or a townhouse? Since this is my first time I thought I will take some suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Mandar