All Forum Posts by: Charles Soper

Bit of a catch 22 there, you can at least get the estoppel from each tenant and maybe go back to the seller and see if they can confirm the info with bank statements.  As much as you might want to emotionally, don’t rely on what is said so much as what can be proven.  If they won’t provide something to help verify you need to be asking what they might be hiding.

Alternatively , you could ask the tenants for copies of cancelled checks but that may be pushing it a little.

Great job sticking to the due diligence process!  Is the broker your guy or the buyer’s?  Ultimately they are it’s looking to get paid and if that means forcing a deal good,bad, or indifferent then so be it, hopefully not.

Hard to get expenses without help from the buyer but you can at least verify income and what the owner pays for via estoppel statements from the current tenants.  Verify rents, if they’re current, security deposits, what utilities the tenant pays for, etc.  If they have a property manager in place you can try talking to them about what kind of issues the property has or had and the expenses they’re seeing. 

You should also look into the appraisers office and see if there are any open permits, code enforcement fines, or special assessments coming.

Place to start, hope that helps

Just speculation as I’ve tried the following but gotten no interest, look up Starbucks or whatever place you want and see if you can find their real estate managers.  In the case of Starbucks I know they have regional area managers but shouldn’t be too hard to find

Long term lease for somebody who wants to build-to-suit?  Any chance it’s in a high traffic area for a Starbucks or Dunkin’?  If it’s in a trendy area maybe mixed use cargo container build?

Any chance you can get a line of credit on the 4plex?  Is it far enough along to have forced some equity to use?

Happier hacking multifamily is a great way to go, just be prepared to live in the pig until you can put lipstick on it.  Find the worst property you can in a good or gentrifiying area and get to work.

As for finding it, you’ve answered your own question, network your butt off and maybe drive for dollars if you’ve got the time.  Some counties and cities have lists on their property appraiser websites that call out multifamily and how many units, if not a quick call to them might get you that list.

Good luck

Another option may be as a legacy play.  Does he have heirs that would benefit from a long term monthly payment?  That would give him the tax advantage now and his kids the tax advantage later.

Good for you going the house-hacking route, lots of upside potential if done right.  I think you answered your own question in the process of asking though, as an investor you will likely have issues with tenants and renovations/contractors at some point.

As long as you are comfortable with the transitioning area that will likely provide for greater upside over time and renovations.  Comfort bias will keep you safe (the better neighborhood) but safe isn’t always as profitable.

Man, if you can build for less than you can buy in a B/C neighborhood ABD get tax credits from the municipality, sounds like a home run.  Only thing that might make it better is if the property falls inside an opportunity zone, the its tax free after so many years!

Hey @Gilbert Vigil, welcome to BP!

You've possibly earned yourself a degree by now if you've been studying RE for years, now it's time to put that knowledge to work!  Two classes of properties when it comes to multi-family, residential (1-4 units), and commerical (5+ units).

You can do some searches on BP and spend many more hours reading about the pro's and con's of each according to the person writing the post/article/blog but for you're case it sounds like commercial might be very in line with your needs/goals at the moment!

So yes, commercial is based wholly off of the income of the property and not your personal credit or assets.  The biggest catch to commercial is that you need more % down (which may or may not be a problem depending on location and size of property), and loan terms.  At best you'll find most banks will require 30% down, you might get lucky with a local community bank and see 25% but it's rare.  Loan terms are the sticky one, you're not going to find those long-term fixed rate loans residential enjoy.  That said, with where the economy might go right now, just make sure you are getting AT LEAST a 5 year term, if you can find it 7 - 10 with little or no prepayment penalty would be ideal, just so you can ride out any storm that may come in the next few years.

Many industry experts are expecting apartments to weather the next recession well, but you need to do your research and see if you agree, and act accordingly.

Sorry, got on a soapbox there, as for other options you might consider you can always look into passively investing via a joint venture or syndication with somebody like myself, or crowd-funding is a great option too, something like fundrise.com or groundfloor.com, again, do your research.

Best speed to your recovery...