Adequate reserves vs. rehab budget

[Phil Ferranto]

Hi everybody, I'm shopping for a 30-50 unit MF apartment building and am trying to work some calculations for reserves and rehab costs. I have an ever growing list of data points that suggest investing at least $5,000/unit in rehab costs is a great way to drive value and force appreciation that would more than pay for itself within 12-24 months. This assumes you're taking over a C property and can gain an extra $50/month in rent. 

Using these assumptions, my questions are: 

• Can the $5K/unit count as our rehab and reserve budget? Can I just roll them all into one?
• If property is valued at $1MM and we want to budget $200K in reserves, would it be realistic to secure an $800K mortgage with 5-10 yr. fixed/25-30yr. amort/1st yr interest only for a first time sydicate?
• Has anybody invested more than $5K/unit in upgrades in C property and not been able to force appreciation to realize decent ROI?

Another general question is have any MF apartment investors used an advisory firm and seen the value in that for securing financing? What terms do they currently look for?