All Forum Posts by: Kevin Borland

John, thanks for the response. I am not sure this location is going to attract those droves of boomers, as the studios and 1 br's in the area average 400-650sf. The boomers that could afford the rent the area commands, I would think, will not want to downsize that small unless they are a single empty nester. There are high rise buildings that attract the more affluent of them and many buy. Portland is attracting many young people to the area daily and with the influx it makes more sense, to me, to target that demographic for the new building. What mix would you build if you were the owner?

I am working towards scraping a duplex I own and building a multi-story building with approx 10-12 units. My question, and my first BP question, is, what mix would you do?

It is close-in to the downtown core, above average rents, can bike into the core easily, or grab the light rail for a 5 min trip, etc. Most of the new buildings going up in the market area are studios and 1 br's with a some 2 br's. Having owned and managed mostly small plexes and SFR over 30+ yrs I have never owned a studio or 1 br units. I am also a RE Broker of 23 years and suffer from the bias of home buyers in our area always wanting the cookie cutter 3br/2ba. Of course the renter in the core area is different, which I get and I am just trying to figure out what kind of a mix to do.

From my exploration of multi family, investors have some strong opinions (shocking) about their mix preferences. Things I have heard ... 

*studios: tenants are more mobile and move more often, get married, kids, etc. 

*1 br: first units to go empty when the economy tanks into recession because the tenant can't team up with friend to handle rent. 

I was leaning towards all 1-br's (younger professional tenant, who maybe bikes to work, and doesn't own a car. This is in Portlandia, where the young go to retire) but after reading some of this, I thought i would reach out to this community for their real world experience.