All Forum Posts by: Matthew Tierce

@Jay Dewberry @Daniel O.

Thank you both for your responses and the good information. For more background, I manage a large property management company and have access to a lot of vendors to keep costs way down as a lot of them will do things 'at cost.' I've frequently dealt with property owners who incur a large expense and are scrounging, maxing out credit cards, etc just to fix. The building is listed for $369,000, which is basically what comparable buildings are selling for. I plan to maintain a home warranty plan on it past what the seller will provide to cover major repairs (HVAC, major plumbing, etc) and we have two staff handymen who can handle all minor repairs (leaky faucets, broken lights, etc). In addition, the commission I would get from the sale (roughly $9,000) would go directly into a "reserves" account specifically for this property. 

Another reason why I am wanting to get something quickly is my lender said I need to own it for a year before I can purchase a new single family home conventional, which we were planning next May. 

If rents are raised to current market value, it should be in the positive roughly $500 if there are no maintenance expenditures that our handymen cannot handle. Also, once I am able to eliminate PMI, profits will increase by $289. Thoughts? Also what are your feelings on maintaining a home warranty plan? For 4 unit building through Fidelity it's roughly $1,000/year. I have a lot of clients that maintain them, and one saved them from a $5,400 HVAC bill.

Hello, I have been actively trying to buy my first 4-plex, but the market where I live they are scarce. I found one that is in a good rental area (I have been a property manager for 5 years) and looks to be pretty well kept and stable. The seller won't budge on price, so as they are offering for sale here would be the #'s:

*$2,400 payment

*$2,800 gross rents as is (should be about $3,000) 

*water, sewer, trash about $270

Basically, as-is, with paying PMI it is only barely breaking even. My ultimate goal is to buy and hold for retirement. Does anyone think it is a good idea? I put $300/month away in 401k, so having this pay for itself and maybe come out of pocket a few hundred per month for maintenance and turn over seems OK to me, but I want opinions of other investors. I am not in a position to pay 25% down; I would over the next 5 years like to save for a larger (maybe 10-12 unit), so this would be getting started with FHA.

Any help and insight would be great. :)