Rehabbing vs Complete Teardown and Starting from Scratch

[Matt Rothwell]

After my most recent deal fell through, I've been looking around again. In the area I'm looking, there is a ton of houses made in the late 40's. These aren't historic architectural masterpieces, they're cheap crappy houses made to house soldiers after WWII. It appears that they were just thrown up quickly, and never really meant to last 60 years. Some of them are in good shape, but a lot of it is garbage. No ducting for HVAC, terra cotta plumbing under the house, odd electrical setups.

I'm thinking that I could probably pick up a dump of a house in a transitioning area and knock it down to build a new quadraplex. If I buy the current property for $10000, and build a new house for $100,000, I can still cashflow pretty well, renting each unit for ~$625. I'd also have the newest house on the block, which would further set my property apart . Is this realistic? Is a 4 unit, 3000 square foot quad build-able for $100,000? How about $150,000? How much does demolition cost?