My first deal was a live in duplex to get started

[Chris Cooper]

Investment Info:

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

Purchase price: $230,000
Cash invested: $40,000

My first deal i did was a buy and hold. It was a good purchase because we paid a solid price for it and even after the COR, the total was still less than comparable home nearby and since we've bought, it has appreciated by about $100,000. we are now plotting to refinance and use the money to put into our next project.

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

I knew that if i bought a single family home that it would hurt my debt to income ratio and make it hard to buy another property. When you have rental income coming in, you keep your options open so that was the plan at the time of purchase and i am thankful and glad that we approached it this way.

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

We found it just searching for a home on zillow. However, we noticed it wasnt sold for a while and decided to look into it and see what wa sholding back buyers from purchasing. Once we got the inspections done and walked through the home, we realized there was an opportunity here and that the seller was very motivated to leave so we made an offer the next day.

How did you finance this deal?

We did an FHA loan because we knew we would want to live in it. Then we took out a 203b loan for the repairs and paid cash for some more cosmetic repairs and the repairs and the rest was history.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Be very selective with you GC. Always see a portfolio of their work before hiring them and make sure they have references.