Multifamily Good Deal or No?

[Manco Snead]

Greetings,

I'm hoping to get some feedback on my first OOS property I'm looking at. Would you buy it given below?  Good cashflow seems very difficult to find these days:

Medium sized city; midwest college town. Town experiencing growth and new development inc. new hospital. No obvious deferred maintenance thus far. Inspection not yet completed.

Property: side by side 1976 2/1 duplex with new roof

Prospective #s:

Purchase price: $200k

Down: 25% ($50K)

Current total rent: $1550

Cashflow:

Rent: $1550

       - $200 (vacancy/repairs)

       - $1050 (mortgage(inc. tax/ins)

       - $160 Prop. Management

       = $140 total cashflow

Cashflow is not great, but I think rents could be raised. Both units rented. And I like the growth/ new construction in the area.

Thoughts?

Much thanks.

[Amy Turnbull]

This sounds like a buy and hold so anything you make on rent in the meantime is fluff. I first bought an SFR: rent $1,600/mortage $1,100. Sold that and bought a duplex: rents $1,600/mortgage $800. Now I'm looking at another multi: rents $1,600 (I'm not making this up, seriously!)/mortgage $600. If you anticipate a long game, negligible rents shouldn't be a problem but just keep rolling those funds into your reserve account for repairs that are bound to happen. Good luck!