First deal! Help me out please! (Multifamily owner occupied)

[Aaron Brown]

Hello BP Community! This is my first post and first deal so I'm excited but also needing some advice!

This single-family home built around 1900 has been converted into a multi-family with four units. I am planning on this being my personal residence for 1-2 years(either unit 1 or 2) and was able to get a local bank to finance with only 5% down since it's a personal residence. Here's the details:

Purchase Price: $62,000

Closing costs: approx $3,000

Monthly Rent ($725, unit 3&4 currently rented)

Unit 1- 600 (2br) -newer cabinets and carpet

Unit 2- 450 (1br) -newer cabinets and carpet

Unit 3- 350 (studio)

Unit 4- 375 (1br)

Monthly Expenses- ($488, not including management or maintenance)

Insurance- 83

tax-138

water- 47 (total house-city won't provide separate meters)

trash-18

gas-50 (owner pays gas for unit 3 and 4, 1 water heater for both units)

electricity- unknown

sewer-26 unknown (estimate based on local rates - 26)

Maintenance ???

Management???

Advertising, Landscaping, other???

Questions- How much should I include for monthly maintenance budget? I plan to manage it myself as I will be onsite, but should I plan for prop. management up front?

Interesting side notes-

1) the two current tenants are longterm 4+ years, but are also not clean and tidy at all.

2) there are several very nice houses in this neighborhood, but the one next door is condemned (in tax default), and a house a couple blocks over has been destroyed completely by fire.

3) Comps of SF and MF homes are all over the place in the area and it's pretty much impossible to get comps on this type of unit even going back 2 years.

Any suggestions on how I should factor the current tenants, neighborhood, comps or empty unit potential??? Anything I'm missing?

I've just about ran the numbers and scenarios to death and at this point need some outside advice!

[Colleen F.]

Congratulations! A couple of things you need to be sure to have included heat? Lawn care? snow removal?

Is there any deferred maintenance? make sure you review that and budget for it.

Why are the units vacant? Were they owner occupied? Where did the rental rates for the vacant units come from? how long have they been vacant? How long can you afford for them to be vacant?

For comps you need to weigh a few things, is the area increasing or decreasing in value? You also look at anything that has sold to see how this property fits with other sales even if those sales are not the same property type. hope that helps a bit.