All Forum Posts by: Sara Furlong

Sorry - forgot link. Quad is here:

http://www.trulia.com/property/3208924652-323-325-...

It has

-one 1BR

-two 2BRs

-one 3BRs

3200 sq ft total.

Good location.

We're looking at this four-plex on Saturday. We're looking to buy our first MF home.

It's been for sale by owner, but in the listings for 115 days. I see they've dropped the price twice.

Is this a bad sign? Looking for insight from more experienced buyers!

Also, wondering what kinds of things we should look for when we check it out.

What makes a great investment? What makes a bad one?

Thank you in advance! :)

I want to confirm that I am correct:

For the first multi-family, which we are going to occupy, I can put down 3.5% with an FHA, whether it has 2, 3, or 4 units?

Then for the next multi-family home we buy, we'll need to use conventional financing, with at least 20% down for a duplex and 25-30% down for a triplex or quad?

We are looking for our first multi-family, which we plan to owner occupy. If I am understanding the above correctly, does this mean that we should buy a more expensive property for our first, perhaps a triplex with three income-producing apartments, since that is our one opportunity to pay only 3.5% down? Then (ideally) we can accumulate some duplexes that we'll have to put down 20% for?

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm anxiously awaiting the seller's response. I'm not against hanging out in a month-to-month until we can move in, but I'd love to know more details. Hoping it's a good one. Will update.

Thanks! That's my instinct, too! ;)

What do you think about living in one for a year, saving money, and then moving? Too soon?

My husband works a full-time job that covers all our expenses and I stay home with my kids and freelance write on the side for about $2-4K/month.

As I've said before, we're totally new at this.

We're in the process of selling our single-family home to buy a multi-family we'll owner occupy.

So far, we're interested in two properties:

-A triplex that is full of happy tenants that would make us at least $1,000/month. (Priced at $134K, we'd hope for at least a $10K price drop)

-A duplex that is near my sick parents, that we actually want  to live in with our children, and that seems very easy, solid, and manageable. (Priced at $75K, but we again want a good price drop because there's an exterior staircase we'd need to fix that will cost us $15K.)

I would love to buy them both at the same time. In my fantasy, we'd buy the bigger one first so we could do 3.5% down with an FHA. And then do the smaller one because the 20% we'd have to put down would be smaller.

Background - we're not wealthy! We have a small emergency fund of about $10K and about $25K equity in our home.

MY QUESTIONS;

-Is this even possible?

-What could keep this from happening?

-Is this idea stupid? Since we're new at this, should we just buy one property as we get our feet wet with land lording? Should we wait to make sure we don't have any big repair surprises? Other reasons to wait?

-Other thoughts? 

Hi. My husband and I are aspiring real estate investors working on our first move.

Originally, our goal was to pay off our high student debt. We began looking into owner occupying a multi-family home. Then we realized that, rather than using every penny of income to pay off student debt, it makes more sense to buy more multi-family homes.

Our goal is to buy one we can live in with our kids for a year, then move to our second one. Our first objective is to make enough income from rent to cover our expenses, and then move into a single-family home. We don't know what our plan is from there! We are very new at all this!

Nice to meet you all!

Thanks for your thoughts! Greg S - we have two kids, also. The upper unit would be far too small - but don't think I didn't consider getting them bunk beds and sleeping with my husband on a hide-a-bed in the living room! ;)

Billy - I have a feeling it's not very competitive at this point. I will check into those options. Thank you.

I also just found a listing that sounds promising, a for sale by owner:

$135000/ 7br - 3000ft2-3 unit triplex

3 unit in village. Separate Gas and electric. 3 stall garage. All occupied. Each unit has laundry. Email if interested. Rent income is 2 bedrooms $530, 2 bedroom $675 3 bedroom $550, these rents could be higher long time tenants. Lots of updates. New gas furnaces in each unit.

2- 2 bedrooms (2nd floor)
1-3 bedrooms (1st floor)

This is a good area and a great school district. Has potential!

My husband and I have decided we want to begin buying multi-family homes. Our goal right now is to find one to owner-occupy while we save up for our next one.

We want the first one to be very easy, cheap, and manageable. We also want it to be close to my parents (my dad is sick) and to have a nice yard and enough bebdrooms for our kids.

We found this one that meets those criteria:

http://www.trulia.com/property/3239871852-114-S-Main-St-Canastota-NY-13032

It's actually way nicer inside than I expected given there are no pictures. (It is an estate.) The house seems solid.

When we looked at it, we thought it was the one, because the upstairs apartment would come close to paying our mortgage, insurance, and taxes.

Then, after some calling around, we discovered the stairs to the upper apartment aren't up to code. We got an estimate to rebuild and it was $15K that we don't want to spend out-of-pocket.

SHOULD WE:

-Look into FHA203Ks to buy the house and fix the stairs?

-If we do that, should we drop our offered price accordingly? What would you offer?

-We probably shouldn't make an offer requiring them to fix the stairs because it's an estate, right?

-Scrap this property and wait for a better one?

Looking forward to hearing your insights. Thanks!

We want to be free of our crippling $80K student loan debt. Our idea is to sell our current house (only about $16K equity in it) and buy a 2-family and live in half and rent the other (we are a family of four - 2 little kids).

We found a house that is listed for only $74,900. It's an estate of a 100-year-old lady that died last month. There is a 3BR apt down and a 1BR up. We actually like it, which surprised me for that price. The only issue with it we can find so far is the stairs to the upstairs apartment are very steep and slanted. (It is a covered outdoor staircase.)

We want to live in the downstairs apartment and rent the upper one. This would make our monthly payment with everything about $200. Our mortgage now is $1070, so that's an improvement. We can take the savings and throw it at our student loans.

Then in about 2 years, once we've paid off half the student loans and saved up some down payment money, we will have just one loan left and can move to a new place . We would want to keep this little 2-family and use the profits from the rent to pay off the remaining loans.

Is this a viable plan? What am I missing? I feel like there could be some potential in doing things this way. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR ANY INSIGHT YOU CAN PROVIDE.