Advise on buying apartment complex, please

[Mike T.]

I'm looking at buying a cluster of apartment buildings. I'm new to this (apartment complex). I have owned and rented out a few single family homes and CURRENTLY doing it. I wanted to get into multi family units now to scale things up

4 units in one building, 8 units in one building, and 4 units in one building. Total of 16 units.

Each unit is 2 BR/1 BA of about 700 sq.ft. Next to a major state university/college in the Bible belt.

Built in the early 1980's with solid bricks framing on the outside. Inside wooden framing with a pyramid hip style pitched shingle roof. Roof is about 15 years old (still in good shape, but most likely will need replacing in about 5 years).

The TOTAL asking price is $495999. Each unit is renting for $500/month. I'm likely to offer much less. The owners produced an appraisal done in 2017 that showed a value of $560000. I'm not putting too much faith in the appraisal bc I don't know how accurate it is. I can put down 20% cash and finance the balance. Or if I really wanted to I COULD pay it all in cash (but I don't want to). I have good credit score of 780.

The owners are not very forth coming with very detailed information regarding repairs and such.

From I can see all 16 units stay fully rented. I estimate around 15% vacancy, but the owners "official" 1099 issued by the realty management company for the last two years showed much lower numbers (I was given a copy of the 1099 for the last two years). So IDK ???

For example, I wanted to know how old each appliances in each unit and what repairs done on them and when. I looked at ALL units recently and saw three units empty and getting repainted ready to rent. I would say the units are grade "C" in a "B" area. These are not totally run down, but these are clean and just have old carpets and tiles, kitchen cabinets, appliances, and etc. I'm still waiting for the owners to show me the information I requested through my realtor.

What do you have guys think?