Duplex - Buy/Hold, Refinance and Sell

[Adam Nord]

Investment Info:

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

Purchase price: $53,000
Cash invested: $20,000
Sale price: $134,500

This deal was the result of a tired landlord. It was an older woman who was frustrated with self-managing her rentals after her husband passed away. She also had a down unit, which she did not want to spend the money to turn. This made her motivated to seek a quick, cash transaction.

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

I liked the cash flow that I projected on this deal. There was also the possibility forced appreciation through cosmetic value add potential to turn the down unit for more income, as well as clean up the exterior of the property. We redid the interior and rented this side of the duplex to a section 8 tenant.

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

This deal was through a wholesaler who I still have a great relationship with today. I negotiated a $2,000 price reduction from what he was asking.

How did you finance this deal?

A private money lender financed this deal for us. He had previously sold us a property of his on owner financing and had some extra cash he wanted to put to work. We structured and interest only loan at 8% paid monthly.

About 8-12 months in, after completing renovations and placing a stable tenant, we refinanced the property with a local bank. This was a portfolio loan that included a few other properties we had with private lenders. The terms were 20 year amortization at 4.39%.

How did you add value to the deal?

Through cosmetic renovations and by increasing rents to their fair market rate.

What was the outcome?

The outcome was a great investment that allowed me to pull out some equity along the way and then sell the property, as the market continued to appreciate. I got cash (equity) from the refinance and again when I went to sell.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

This was an older property so the maintenance was something that I did budget enough for. This cut into cash flow some but not too bad. Also, there were some plumbing issues from the previous tenants, which I learned to do more thorough diligence on potential unseen issues before closing and work those into my model.