Can I get tenants for a multifamily in my area?

[Jessica Long]

We have a SFH that we are considering converting into a duplex (it is a split level with a walk out basement). The numbers absolutely make sense to convert it as far as typical rental for the units for our area.

My main question is how to analyze my area to see if we would be likely to fill the top unit (how do I know families/indiv. would want to rent a home with a basement unit attached). The upstairs is a 4 br, 2 bath, 2 level, open floor plan, large eat in kitchen etc...Not a small space. I have heard from some re agents that families are turned off by units that have an attached unit. Any advice on how to figure this out? I thought about listing it to see the interest level making it clear that it will be the upstairs portion of the home for rent only and that there is a separate basement unit. The basement unit cannot support the whole structure if we want it to cash flow. We need to try to keep both units filled if we can. 

[Russell Brazil]

Quote from @Jessica Long:

@Joshua Messinger and @Taylor J McGuire thank you so much! Your help is invaluable. I am learning something new everyday about this business. If I am doing this correctly, my research shows that our area has a projected employment growth rate of 34% over the next 10 years (I checked here for this info: Economy, bestplaces.net - are there better ways to find this out?). We have a variety of job industries in the area (hospital, NASA, lots of government jobs), short metro ride to downtown Washington DC, lots of parks and convenient shopping, otherwise, our area is a pretty typical suburb neighborhood. This would be a LTR but are open to STR for the basement unit. It is pretty hard to find SF rentals in our exact area (like under 10 in our zip code)- not a whole lot of options for bigger homes especially so we might have the advantage in that for now. Thanks again! I will look closer at the numbers. I think if it were a SF rather than a duplex we would have no trouble filling it. We are at the crossroads now-to renovate or leave as is. It's about an $800 difference in cash flow so pretty significant. For our investment plan to cash flow it works best as two units (but only if we can fill both barring the 5% vacancy rate for our area).

 Where is the property exactly? Most places in the DC metro area do not allow you to just convert your property to a duplex.