All Forum Posts by: Courtney M.

I didn't bother seeking my family's approval before I started. My mom had some words about "being careful" but I know a lot more about real estate and knew how to properly evaluate a property. I only have one property now, but they ask every so often and I say it's going well, and it is. Be smart. Don't take on a flip on the other side of the country with no experience or contacts for your first deal. Get an investor-centric agent, get a PM that will be honest about the area and rental rates. Having those two people on your team will help you to be successful and lower risk.

Hi @Justin Shelton, good tip. I'm looking to have a contractor walk through a property I'm considering buying so I can get a scope of the work.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a Monroe MI contractor/ agent? Thank you!

@Saravanan Saravanan good points! I'm somewhat familiar with Monroe since my husband still has family there. The negative population growth concerns me but I also know (at least from the family I see there) many people stay in the local area. All great considerations.

@Cade Andersen It's in Monroe. So honestly not a great growth market. The seller financing intrigued me but I do think it's definitely overpriced now that I'm thinking more about it.

Congratulations! Retiring in your twenties is amazing! 

@Immanuel Sibero, this is an excellent point. I'm going to look into duplexes first. My gut is looking at it from that perspective, this is overpriced.

@Sam Grooms thanks so much for the quick analysis. I will run through these numbers later - NOI is a fairly new concept to me! So I want to work them so I can get a good understanding of how to build a proposal around the numbers.

@Khalid Bryan I completely am on board with the thought process here. The biggest "downside" from what I can see is that there doesn't seem to be value-add opportunity. Fully leased, tenants already paying utilities. The owner has probably been self-managing. You mentioned beefing up due diligence - in this sort of scenario would you be doing this up-front work before making an offer? Or would you work out the NOI first, offer on that, and then have the period of due diligence to dig deeper?

Thanks for your insight!

Thanks @Bjorn Ahlblad, it's actually in Michigan - I don't think you could buy a property with that many units on the west coast for less than $1 million! :) 

Hi, I happened to see a multifamily property come up in my husband's old neighborhood. I find it intriguing for a couple of reasons and wanted some input on how you would go about evaluating a deal like this.

It's essentially 5 duplexes at $776,000. The listing notes the owner will finance on a land contract over 20 years with $100k down. The listing also specifically states he doesn't want a realtor/broker.

Per the listing, gross rent is at about $98,000. He lists the expenses for the new owner in year one, which includes mortgage payment, insurance and property taxes at about $57,000. Of course that number doesn't account for property management or opex. There are 5 roofs, after all, and the properties were built in 1995. The project is currently 100% leased (rates per unit are not listed). Cap rate on the listing is 8.73%. I will be in the area in a few weeks so I was thinking of going to take a look.

In this scenario, with the limited information, how would you evaluate this deal and structure an offer? Running some quick math, it looks like each unit is renting at $823ish. Quickly running searches on Zillow, this looks to be about right, maybe just slightly under. Listing also notes tenants are paying all utilities and all have a washer/dryer in unit.

With this limited information, is this a "deal" you would be interested in? What would be your process? I've never even put in an offer on multifamily, let alone one without a broker, so I'm trying to figure out what the initial steps might be to better qualify this deal.

Of note - this isn't a growing population area. It's more of a smaller rural area but as a result, there aren't a lot of rental properties on the market. It's definitely another area I'd want to dig into before going further.