Duplex in Historic Lakeland

[Christopher Reeder]

Investment Info:

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

Purchase price: $80,000

Duplex with detached carport/laundry

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

This was my first duplex property. I had been looking for a short time and found this property which I felt could, at worse, break even.

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

Off-market email list. Didn't negotiate because property came with hurricane damage which I felt was appropriately priced into the asking price. Rents were also below market.

How did you finance this deal?

Hard money loan.

How did you add value to the deal?

Repaired hurricane damage to carport. Old oak tree took out 1/2 of the carport and made it unusable.

What was the outcome?

Closed on property and made repairs (took much longer than anticipated). Increased rents on both tenants and are in process of evaluating a refinance to pull repair/investment $$ out of the property.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Though the repair costs were 40% cheaper than other quotes I had, the time to complete took much longer than I thought. I had to make some concessions to tenants on rent to keep them calm while they were forced to go to laundry facilities to clean their clothes.