My family and I are moving to a new area and we found a 3b/2ba duplex with a two car garage on each side in Temple, TX. Apparently these are rare but we wanted to start off right with a renter on one side and us in the other. We are with the military and our housing allowance is 1400 a month which would go toward the mortgage to pay it down and do any minimal upgrading to qualify higher rent. The asking price is 189900, with one side already rented out for 950 but the rent for the recently vacant side is up to 1100. I am still waiting to find out if the rent includes utilities or not. We would put about 14000 down to lower the price but it would be with a VA loan. The taxes is about 4600 a year. Comparing recently sold houses in the area, unsure if they are also duplexes or not, this house is at least 20,000 higher than the "Comps". Numbers wise I want to offer at least as low at 175000 but I don't want to lose this duplex. Our timeline for picking a house and moving is getting shorter and I've never seen a duplex for sale in the 2 months of searching. Should I bite the bullet and buy at asking price or take the risk for the potential cash flow reward. When I ran the numbers I started with 180000 as the price, 4.2% interest, 4600 a year taxes, fees out of pocket, 30 years, 2200 (potential rent when we move out in 3 years or less), utilities paid by tenants, I didn't know what to do for insurance so I put our current insurance (rental property and our current renters insurance) 72, with a management coverage of 10% with repairs at 10%, vacancy at 5%, capex at 10% and no future expectations the cash flow came out to be 160 a month and a 14.31% ROI. I know it exceeds the 50% rule. At a 189900 price the cash flow is $115 and 9.75% ROI. Is this still a good choice?
