New Construction 64-70 unit Complex

[Mike Henkel]

Hi all!

Little background on me. I own 60 apartments most of which are 4-5 person college rentals. Recently I purchased a 4.61 acre parcel of land in prime location a block away from my 60 current units that is already zoned for an apartment complex with 15 units per acre. With the zoning I can only rent to 2 unrelated people per unit. My plan is to do 8-8 unit buildings with 2 bedrooms per unit then maybe do a building with a few units and a leasing office after the 64 units are completed. Have a builder working on plans now (he has built a few apartment complexes in town with same layout).  I have a 14 unit building with around 600k in equity. My plan is to refinance the 14 unit building to put the down payment on the construction. Just curious if any other apartment owners that have built apartments have any suggestions to building (doing all 8 buildings at once using 800k in down payments (400k from refinance of 14 unit building, 200k cash, 200k in land value), doing one building a year to try and cash flow during construction and spread out the cost (probably not take out any refinance just use cash and land value as down payment), or any other ideas? Waiting on builders final cost breakdown but was told by another landlord it will be 60-75k per unit. 

Any thoughts or suggestions are helpful!