Condo Complex Deal or No Deal

[Michael D'Egidio]

Greetings BP Brethren!

I hope everyone has been having a prosperous and lucrative summer and is ready for fall! I had some questions concerning a possible deal I would be considering, but I think I'm painting myself into a corner being so new to the investing side of properties. My situation is like this:

I want to buy a 4-plex of condominums, each for between 55k-60k a piece. all are in the same building. Max rent allowable on each at the 1.1% lets me list rent for a condo in the middle reasonably for $638.00/month. there is also a $155.00 condo association fee tacked on the end that I'm not sure can be added to the monthly rent. so the proposed cash flow of each condo per month will roughly be $134.00/unit without even breaking into other expenditures, that is covering a conventional loan of 20% down and 349/month per unit mortgage for 30 years. so with all 4 units as one giant loan package, a conglomerate loan will be for 232,000 with 20% down leaving the mortgage payment of 1195/month for 30 years. tentative cash flow before expenses/mortgages will be 2,552.00 subtracting mortgage and association fee only. This leaves a cash flow of roughly $737.00/month not looking at any other expenses, vacancies, broken items, etc etc. do you think this deal is reasonable in that case? my other question is this.

Smaller scale. Say I buy one condo at 58k cash. at that proposed rent and and figure it will take me roughly 10 years to get that money back in full with no big return on investment, just breaking even really. recovering the 58k that was spent. what benefits are available to me while that process continues? per unit it will only be cash flowing about 483.00/month not including items breaking, repairs, etc etc. let me know your take on this. I'm really at a crossroads. The more I keep looking at the numbers, the more I'm thinking it's not that spiffy of a deal. If it's one motto learned very quickly within the BP community it's definately the numbers don't lie... I appreciate the thoughts guys! blessings!