Small Multifamily - Estimating Rehab Sight Unseen

[Devin Otway]

Hello BP'ers!

My partner and I are currently in the process of offering on our first property. We are investing out of state (investing in the midwest) and have made several offers and gotten turned down. The last deal that we got turned down on was on a 6 unit at an asking of 152K with a rent of $2300 / month for all units. We offered 140K because we estimated (without seeing the property) that it would need about 15K in rehab. This was just a ballpark conservative number that we used to determine an offering price. Our offer got turned down and it eventually sold to a buyer @ 150K. My questions are the following:

Questions

1) How do you best estimate rehab costs sight unseen? (For the purpose of an initial offer)

It's hard for us to see the property up close b/c (1) tenants require 48 hr notice to get into the property (2) the deals move quickly in the market

2) When you are estimating rehab amount does this only include the cost of fixing units to make them rent ready?

3) If the property required some immediate capex expenses would you just include this in your rehab expenses or would you model it as capex that happened to be paid upfront (and thus won't need to be paid later).

Thanks so much!