First Investment Property

[Cristal Marques]

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $142,500
Cash invested: $15,000

fully occupied, needs some updating, new roof soon, figure out porch thats not being used and falling apart, would like to convert attic to a third unit studio

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Investing in real estate has always been a plan for me. We would have liked to invest locally but prices here in California were too high for our budget. I started researching markets out of state and was interested in Cleveland so we booked a flight. After visiting the city we saw a lot of opportunity and affordable prices.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

I'm not really sure it was a "deal". We purchased it the traditional way by going through an agent, we viewed some houses on our second trip out there and ended up picking one and going for it. I would love to learn on how to find good deals.

How did you finance this deal?

We had cash for down payment and went through a broker for our loan who was recommended to us by our agent.

How did you add value to the deal?

We have put in about $15k for repairs. Mostly small things, biggest things have been a new electric panel, appliances for one unit, fresh paint for one unit, new garage doors.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

My biggest challenge is that convenient flights from the Bay Area to Cleveland are hard to come by. There are very few direct flights, layovers just add extra travel time which i don't like.