All Forum Posts by: Anthony Gayden

Honestly, the owner occupied route seems like a good path to take, I'm doing it myself. It is a very low amount of money down, and the 203K allows you to make repairs and do work on the property. This will help you add value, and hopefully lead to higher rents being paid. I believe you only have to owner occupy for 1 year, then you can do the process again with another 4-plex. Meanwhile your tenants are paying your mortgage and you are living for free, and maybe even making a little money. You will be able to save/invest even more money if you aren't paying housing costs.

I personally believe it depends on your goals. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to invest in multi-family. After I made that decision, I decided to focus solely on my goal.

I started with multi-family, and where I am investing (Arizona), residential multi-family costs about the same as single family homes, yet the rent you receive from having multiple units far surpasses the rent you could get from having a single family unit that cost the same. For example, a 4-plex that costs $150,000 could mean $2400 a month in rent, while a similar priced single family home could get $1200-$1400 a month. Also if you have a vacancy of that single family home, you are paying 100% of the mortgage until you get a new tenant. In the 4-plex if you have a vacancy, the other three tenants are still paying a good portion of the mortgage and expenses. In my case all of the expenses could be paid with my building 50% occupied.

In terms of management, I hired a property manager, and personally believe that they are worth the cost, and you should do all of your calculations with the cost included.

@Joel Owens that seems like good advice even if buying small multi-family (2-4 units), and reflects the process I went through buying my 4 plex in Phoenix. I went through all the financials first, before the inspection and appraisal, and I noticed that one of the units that the owner claimed was paying $525 a month rent actually was only paying $500 a month in rent, and the extra $25 was going toward paying the $500 security deposit. I had to revise all my calculations downwards because the average rent decreased.

Even though this was residential and not commercial, I believe that many of the techniques used to calculate how much a property is worth for commercial can apply to residential multi-family as well.

I have found a ton of ways to finance a property since I joined this site. I bought my first property as an investment property and put 25% down with a conventional mortgage. Hopefully that will be the last time I put down that much of my own money on a property.

My next property will be an owner occupied 4 plex and I'm using FHA 203K with 3.5% down. After that I still have enough credit to squeeze out an inexpensive ( less than $100,000) property or two through traditional financing before switching to different techniques.

There are some banks that will allow you to use your rental property income as part of your personal income sooner than three years.

This news is way too broad to be useful. I am sure this applies to densely populated east and west coast areas, but not so much where I invest.

Call animal control on the stray cat in your property's yard.

I am in a similar position. I live about 3.5 hours away from Phoenix, and own a 4-plex there, and honestly, I'm not sure if I could do it without a property manager. I personally believe that they are worth the cost, and I did all my calculations before buying including the cost for one.

If you only plan on seeing the property twice a year, it sounds like you will need a property manager.

This was off the MLS.

So your tenant didn't think that the situation warranted an actual phone call?!?!?!

So I honestly did not think that this would work, yet about 5 minutes ago, a guy calls me saying he saw my ad. I am going to check out his property and see if it fits my needs.

This is a non-MLS listed property.