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Updated over 7 years ago,

User Stats

40
Posts
16
Votes
Ben Volkman
  • Houston, TX
16
Votes |
40
Posts

Calculations with Owner Occupied

Ben Volkman
  • Houston, TX
Posted

Hey BPers,

My wife and I are looking to settle down in the Sugar Land/Stafford/Missouri City area of Houston this fall.  We have no real estate experience but I've been all over the podcasts for the last 8 months and reading the forums as much as possible.  My goal is to get into some small multifamily property where we don't have to pay rent/mortgage every month. 

Our goal would be to do owner occupied for 1 year and house hack each of the units as each tenant moved out and then raise the rents after mini renovation.   After the 1 year, move to a house and rent all the multifam units.

Currently, looking at duplex, triplex and 4-plex.  We both will have pretty busy jobs with the hospital and I don't want to manage more than that on our first deal.

I've been working on analyzing deals lately and getting my numbers down and I came across a few issues/questions, going to start with one here and then post more as they come up.

Example Scenario

145K Duplex on a conventional loan with rent at $700/unit.

1) With my wife and I as 1 occupant it negative cash flows like -$300 per month.  Once we move out and have 2 units rented it cash flows +$400.  Is this still considered a good/decent investment long term? or what if it was -100 with us living there and +600 after we moved out and placed a tenant.   Paying $100 per month sounds better than $1000 or $1200 for apartment rent in my head for 1 year only.

2) In a 4-plex that is fully occupied, how do most buyers deal with the current tenants?  Do they evict them or do I put them through my own screening?  Can I make a contract contingent upon tenants being evicted?

3) Is cash on cash a poor calculator for buying a multi fam when using an FHA loan? Because such little money is used as down payment that any positive return looks like an enormous percentage compared to the 3.5%.

This got much longer than expected so I'm going to stop there.  Thanks for all the input, much appreciated and super excited to jump into real estate investing!

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