Single Family to Income Property in Boston

[Joshua Dawson]

BP'ers,

My wife and I are beginning to plan for our first home purchase in Boston. We plan on buying an income property, or converting a single family into one (if the numbers make sense). Our budget may only allow for the latter, but who knows.

I have an appointment with the Boston zoning department to walk me through what will be needed for them to sign off on occupancy, but I was hoping somebody on BP had experience in converting a single family into an income property as what should I be looking for (e.g. square footage, number of egresses, plumbing...etc) as she and I begin our search. Ideallly, I'd have a checklist when viewing properties that I could use to evaluate them when I see them.

FYI - I'm Boston realtor, so have access to MLS and other lead sources.

Thanks so much!

Best,

Josh

[Shaun Reilly]

He is talking about taking a single family and converting it into a multi family. That would likely involve getting the place rezoned unless he found one that was already on a lot that was zoned multi but only had a single on it.

My guess is that will be a ***** and a half to actually get approved.

Also I can't fathom that being the highest and best use of a place in Boston unless you want to do a condo conversion. I can't imagine any single family that is big enough to convert to a multi would possible have a higher value than keeping it a single. Yeah the rents will be better but people buy rental properties in Boston banking on appreciation since generally the cash flow is going to suck.

Just picking a nicer area in Brighton I see the cheapest listed single at $490K and it is only a 3/1 with a little over 1300sqft. If the layout allows it you can maybe get 2 units with a 2/1 setup. With the $490K price (I'm just assuming you aren't getting a huge discount) and the hefty price tag to do the work and all the BS to get the zoning and approval I will guess you are in for the better part of $550K if you are lucky. Would not be shocked if it is over $600K.

The only duplexes with two 2/1 units that are selling for more than this initial investment have units at least 50-100% larger than the tiny ones you would have. Assuming you pay to have the utilities separated for the tenants to pay I'd guess you'd be lucky to get too much more than $3000 total a month for that $600K investment that will have little equity.