Has housing mania hit your market?

[Chris Kane]

I recently lost out on a duplex in an up and coming area of town that had 8 offers, including mine, the first day it hit the market. The duplex is located right next to one of my other properties so I have been sending the owner direct mail over the course of the past few years that I want to purchase his property but did not have any luck. When he listed his property on the MLS I jumped at the chance to buy it. The numbers on the duplex are flat out terrible which blew my mind that there are so many investors chasing this deal. Here is how bad they are.

Final selling price $357,000 cash which was $18k over asking and $95,000 more than what the seller paid for the property in 2014 and he made zero improvements to the property.

Rent: $1000 for one side and $1125 for the other with nine months left until each lease expires. After which, market rent per unit would be $1300.

On top of the low rents the landlord paid for electricity and gas for one of the units (no clue why he would do that since each unit is metered separate) plus took care of all the lawn mowing and yard care for both sides. 

Taxes were really high too at $5300/year. 

These numbers were so incredibly bad I couldn't believe that so many people chased this deal! I find it hard to believe that this duplex will be worth another $100k more in 2-3 years. Has the speculation mania hit your market? If so what are you seeing?