Starting off with a mid-size apartment complex???

[Drew Leonard]

My business partner and I are both newbies, but he can bring substantial funds to the table such that buying a larger apartment complex could be possible (upwards of a $1MM purchase price). We were under contract on a 4plex, then looking at some SFHs, and now we're entertaining a larger investment. So we've been all over the map and are really suffering from analysis paralysis at this point. We had started out with BRRRRs in mind, but perhaps that wouldn't necessarily be required if we had a larger, strong cash flowing property. Our initial goal is pretty modest; looking to replace our current incomes about 12 years from now (much sooner in a perfect world) and work if/when we want to from there on. Hoping the BP community can share some insight on whether or not starting with a larger investment is a wise move, is it better to buy 5 10-unit properties instead (for example), etc. Thanks.

[Jill F.]

Buy what you can find a good deal on. Good deals are kind of hard to find right now. We started three years ago, we are up to 33 units in 4 deals.  The one thing we did that made scaling up quickly easier was/is to pay for full-featured property management software. We use Buildium; it's not the cheapest thing out there and the customer service department all think they're "rock stars" but the software has features that make the entire management process easier: including move-in/move out inspections, e-leases, on-line e pay, maintenance tracking, and back end accounting. We are in the process of setting up "paynearme" through Buildium so that we'll be able to accept cash at 7-11 (and other stores) with no charge backs possible and all the same conveniences of automated accounting entries that on-line e-pay provides.