First "House Hack" accomplished

[Mike Baker]

So here I sit in the Duplex my wife and finally closed on. What a ride this was.

So about 3 months ago we put our house on the market, here in Montana, with the intention of buying a multifamily of some kind to start our investing career.

Within about 2 weeks we had our house under contract, and began that process. So we knew we needed to step up our search. Property in our area is very expensive so we weren't just going to jump on anything, but we did feel the pressure of living in our motorhome if we didn't get serious. So our realtor (whom I was very impressed with) found a few places for us to look at. So began the offer process. I think we had 6-8 offers going at one time. my wife and I saw numbers in our sleep at that point.

One of those offers was this duplex. we originally offered $65000 less then asking, but sent comps along with the offer to justify the  price. The counteroffer came back at $5000 less then asking so we just ignored it and moved on to the next property.

About 2 weeks later we still did not have a place under contract to move to, and the closing on our house was coming fast, when the realtor from the duplex called our realtor and asked if we were still looking for a place. Which, of course we were.

I should mention the selling Realtor is young and brand new. Our realtor is very seasoned and confident. Just keep that in mind.

So he asks if we would like to offer again, and he tells our realtor that the owners will take $45000 under asking. So I ran the numbers and the deal was still doable, at those numbers. So wrote the offer and sent it over.
The selling Realtor informed us that he had an open house to do that weekend on the duplex and that if he didn't get  higher offer he would present it.

I called bullcrap at that time. he had never mentioned the open house before that point and I had my realtor inform him that the offer was good for 24 hours, and that I didn't appreciate being played. He scrambled to try to justify his actions, but 24 hours later the deal was dead.

One week later, he came crawling back to ask us to offer again. He had set the price on the house and was hoping a cash buyer would just come in and pick it up for his asking.

He was an idiot.

We did offer and did get it form $45000 less then asking. 

We did end up living in our motorhome for about 2 weeks since our closing got pushed back 4 times and we had to close on our house in that timeframe. 3 of those times were due to stupidity from the selling Realtor. The sellers owed money at closing that he didn't tell them about, in the end, because he was scared to say anything.

He was so bad, that it almost inspired me to become a realtor myself.

This of course does not account for the $3000 in work I ended up doing on  our old house, that wasn't planned or the fact that I had to endure 2  different Home inspections ( both were completely different lists, and only 2 weeks apart) and get the runaround from a Radon guy on the old house either. And People wonder why I don't like home inspectors.

But the point is, we have a duplex with a renter in place, and a large storage area that we are going to convert into a studio apartment.

What do you call a duplex with a studio? I wouldn't think it was a true triplex.

My wife and I owe a huge thank you to the Biggerpockets community. It was the info here that kept us moving forward. Thanks!