All small MFH's (Duplexes, Triplexes, etc) very old?

Question

Hi BP community, I was curious if anyone local or anyone in general might know more about something I've been wondering about lately. When I look at small MFH's for sale on the market, and I've been looking for over a year now so have seen several dozen, it seems that almost all of these types of properties are late 1800's / early 1900's build. For context, I live in the Boston suburbs and am always looking in this area (Norfolk county specifically for any local people, own 1 duplex in Franklin).

It seems that all new-ish constructions are either SFH's, condos, large apartment buildings, etc? Does no one build duplexes, triplexes, etc anymore? Is this a known thing or is it just an anomaly? I guess from a developers perspective, I'd take an educated guess that if you had 2 properties right next to each other, identical in size, lot size, bedrooms bathrooms etc, but 1 a MFH & the other a SFH, it seems that the SFH would sell for more, and probably cost less (less framing, doors, windows, appliances, boilers / furnaces / water tank etc

Jon McCarron · Answer

@Cameron Iarrobino

Amateur historian connecting dots, I bet a lot of towns and cities had explosive population growth in those decades. So, the need for housing was immense, and scaling the housing market was needed. So, multi-family housing provided the supply to house people.

That is my guess.

I think today, it is all economics. Developers and builders need to make money. Luxury homes, condo buildings, and larger apartment buildings are a better way to make money of initial sale, or in the case of the apartment buildings, make a decent ROI.

Jonathan Bombaci · Answer

@Cameron Iarrobino look at all the newer construction condos in greater Boston markets like Watertown, Belmont, and Newton. Many of them look will like duplex’ or triplex’s since MF zoning is what you need for condos as well that tends to be the highest and best use for those lots. They still build multis but they sell them off as condos individually for way more than what the duplex or triplex would sell for. In fact there are many times where we buy “newer” multifamily properties and condoize them as our exit strategy.

For example we acquired a side by side duplex that was built in 2010 in Leominster. We added granite in the kitchen and cleaned them up a bit. As a duplex it was worth $400k to $425k as a stretch. Instead we spent less $5k on site work and condo docs and sold each condo for $245,000. The math is pretty clear.

I hope this helps. Best,

Jon

Lien Vuong · Answer

Multi units are still being built but they're worth more separately as multi pieces in condos sales rather than one entire building for one price. Additionally, there's limitations in building code that do not allow builders to build on lots that once permitted muti unit zones, that's why you'll find a lot of older non conforming multi-families in the Greater Boston region.