REI Beginner - Starting out in a Triplex?

[Sean Hannon]

Hi everyone, long time lurker - 1st time posting

Basically I've been in the market for a few years saving up for a home while living with my parents still - I'm 24 years old. I have around 85k cash in savings for this purchase. My current realtor found a triplex for me and they're asking 282k. 3 Units, all 1Br/1Ba and It's in an appreciating town that I'm happy with the location as i would like to house hack this property (currently off market) Because it's short notice and on holiday, he briefly emailed expenses/rents/etc although i will be getting the full past few years breakdown this week when we meet. Here it goes.

Price:

Asking $282,000

Taxes: $4100

Insurance: $1100

Gas/common area electric: 2500

Water/Sewer: 2500

Trash: $480

Expenses: $10,680

He also explained that there is a clothes washer/dryer in the basement that is shared and it's non-coin operated. I would think about changing that to a coin operated one.

Income:

1st Floor: $985

2nd Floor: $1105

3rd Floor: $940 - I would like to take this one as it's the cheapest and the current renter is month to month.

Gross rental income = $36,360

The property is in overall good shape. I ran numbers using the BiggerPockets Calculator and it ended up being conservatively around a high 9-low 10 cap rate. When I ran the numbers for living in the unit, again using 5% vacancy/5% repairs/5%capEx it came out to me paying average $350 dollars while house hacking unit #3. Am i on the right track here in regards to crunching the right numbers that were given to me? Any feedback is appreciated.

[Seth Williams]

@Sean Hannon ill give you a few takes - What someone said above is right - If your paying less in rent, your golden, building equity, you have a ton of write offs with owning the home like depreciation and the interest....and at the end of the day, if you would look at that apartment and be excited to pay 350 a mo to live in it, and when you move out your making 9-10% cap, its golden. I own several three families in the Boston area and this is how I got my first in. Next, I disagree with above - id put as little money down as possible to save more reserves, and then be able to in 6-12 months after owner occupying the property buy another.