All Forum Posts by: Christopher L.

We have been looking into the purchase of a 24-unit apartment building in Arizona that fits our location and buying criteria, however as we dug deeper with the seller we discovered that a few years back they had converted the building to condos and never got around to selling them off. So instead of purchasing one apartment building we will have to see if we can find a bank that will offer a loan on all 24 units.

Honestly, I don't know what to make of this. Has anyone here run into something similar? Is a purchase like this much more complicated than a standard apartment building? Would it be wise to try and convert the property back to an apartment building? If so, is that a difficult process?

Any thoughts or advise are appreciated!  

Hi Christina,

We're buying apartments in Tucson and have been in contact with the following lenders:

• George Seeley - Priority Lending
• Mark Creason - Falkirk Capital
• Lindsay Spjut - First Foundation Bank

I have not worked with any of them outside of introductory conversations, but they have all indicated a willingness to lend once we find the right asset. Please do let us know if you come across any other lenders there!

  Hi Shiloh,

Just a heads up - the city of Burbank keeps an eye on vacation rental sites like AirBnB and will pay you a visit to shut it down if they see you listing anything. We ran into this with one of our units and ultimately were told to shut it down or they'd be taking it to court. They seem pretty serious about it.

In the end we have had to settle for listing on craigslist. The clientele isn't as great but the city is ok with it as long as we make it clear minimum stays will be no less than 28 days.

What size properties are you looking for? I've been searching Tucson for the past 6 months, looking at 20-35 unit buildings. Areas close to UofA are obviously great, South Tucson is sketchy. I also tend to see a lot properties for sale near Prince/Oracle that don't look very appealing. I need to make another trip out there to get a feel for that area.

My partners and I are based on the west coast and looking for less expensive markets to purchase apartment buildings for cash flow. Through the course of my research Kansas City has kept popping up as a solid market with growth on the horizon, so I'm curious to hear from apartment investors in the area who are seeing success.

What areas should we be looking into vs. where should we avoid? What are local cap rates and price per unit trends? 

Any information, advice or contact recommendations are appreciated. Thanks!

This is a great post, I went to school in Tucson and am actively looking for apartment buildings in Arizona. I'd love to know what you think about job growth in the area? I know Phoenix is seeing a nice influx of new jobs but I'm not clear on how things look in Tucson.

There has been quite a bit of discussion surrounding the Phoenix rental market, but I haven't seen as much about Tucson. Do any investors on here own much in Tucson? If so, how do you feel about the state of the market and opportunities for growth in the next few years?

I went to college there and am familiar with the good and bad areas of town. Recently my partner and I were in talks to purchase a 20 unit near the University but ended up being outbid. I'm open to considering other opportunities in the area but I'd be interested to hear what more savvy investors think about the area as a whole.

Curious if you can expand on how you determined this?

A few more thoughts...

Hop on Redfin and get a feel for the neighborhoods and how the prices change as you go north. Setup email/app alerts for properties that fit your criteria and then play with the numbers on rentometer.com to get an understanding of what kind of income you can expect.

After that be sure and get your financing in line so when you're ready to start making offers you know exactly what your constraints will be.

Good luck! I hope you find something.

Hi @Konrad Lightner - my wife and I accomplished this last year and learned a lot in the process. Burbank and Glendale are both highly active markets since they are the only cities around without rent controlled laws. With this in mind, you will be facing heavy competition unless you have enough cash to pay much more than a property is worth.

We had an agent who was great but we quickly learned that things move far too fast to rely on anyone else to find houses for us. If you are serious about buying in this market you need to be prepared to drive by properties as soon as they hit the market and make offers based on nothing more than what you can see from the street. The triplex we ended up purchasing had 11 offers before the first day was over and was in escrow by the next morning.

Sorry if that didn't answer your question. Our agent was out of Orange County so she may not be the best fit for your needs. I've got plenty of more tips about buying in this area though, if you need them. It was a long road for us and I suspect you'll be in for a ride as well. Stay with it though, Burbank is a great city and the strong rent prices make it all worth the effort.