How to finance an apartment building

[Matt Gorman]

Hello BP community,

I'm working on setting up a 5 - 8 year real estate plan for myself.  That means I want to focuse the next 5 to 8 years acquiring real estate.  It's a loose goal but I like structure too.

I've been successful with some single family flips but they are hard to come by (much less predictable in availability and actually beating out other investors) so I am considering some longer term real estate investing.  Townhouses seem like a good idea and I have some $$ to be able to jump on a few and really get that ball rolling.  But, I'm wondering if an apartment building isn't a better plan.  My initial question is -what pecentage down would a mortgage lender or bank require for an apt. building?  Rather than distribute my $$ over several townhouse purchases, maybe I could get a small apartment building.  10 units?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Cudos to the BP podcasts too.

Matt

[Spencer Hilligoss]

@Matt Gorman - sounds like a great plan, but one thing that jumped out at me right off the bat was that you seemed to refer to residential (townhouses, 1-4 units) and commercial multifamily (apartments, 5+ units) interchangeably. These deals warrant two different types of financing and are underwritten differently, as well. 

If you're just now diving in the learning-curve on large multifamily financing , i'd strongly recommend the Old Capital podcast, specifically.  They've got to be one of the most substantive and helpful shows on the podcast circuit, when it comes to apartment financing. Recently, I think they've also been putting out "101" level webinars specifically on multifamily financing. 

Best of luck!