How much duplex can I afford?

[Dave Meyers]

Greetings,

My wife and I are considering building a duplex (on land we don’t own yet), live in one, rent the other, and rent out our current residence.

We live in Cottonwood AZ a LCOL area. Primary residence is 3br/1&3/4 bath valued at $183k. We paid $144k for it in 2016, and mortgage (VA) is $850 and have been making almost double payments.

My question is around how much duplex can we afford to build? We haven’t built before and am unsure if standard calculators would work differently as this is a duplex.

Thanks!

Dave