Multi-Family Purchase Economy of Scale vs. SFH

[James M.]

Hello!

I've been a SFH investor for about 2.5 years now with only one location/door. I had to put a pause button on saving for real estate investments while my wife was not working. But now we're back at it. My goal is to try to minimize locations while keeping a 10-12 percent CoC return in the San Antonio area.

More generally though, I've been looking at going into multi-family housing more as, again, it would reduce the amount of locations I have to manage, at least in the short-medium term. In particular I'm able to save up anywhere 80-100k a year towards this endeavor. With that said, I'm curious in what ways multi-family scales better financially then a single family residence? Are these benefits seen in smaller multi-families such as 2-4 doors? My goal would be my next purchase being a 2-4 door multi-family. I don't think I have the income/connections for something larger then that, but I suppose I could look at it depending on price and oppurtunity.

One of my direct questions are: 

• In general, is CoC return better on a multi-family that is 2-4 vs. a single family?
• Is it easier to find a deal in multi-families based on CoC return then single family? (I don't mean in numbers, but rather by percentages. I feel I have to dig to find an investment even close to 10 percent CoC for a SFH)

I would rather take 80k, for example, and instead of getting 2 or 3 SFH's, I'd get a single multi-family home. Fewer locations I feel would be easier to manage (number of tenants/placing/dealing with tenants not withstanding.). If I have the income, is there any down sides to going this route over SFH's? I feel like perhaps its an income issue that people don't jump on this, outside of house hacking which I can't do with my family.