It took a month and half to complete, listed it online and had quite a few requests and had it rented by Jan. 1st at $899 per month which was above my rent projections.and then apt#2 moved out end of Nov2020 but this time gave me a notice. 2 vacancies at the same time was stressful as hell because before hand everybody was saying they want to stay but I had to stop and realize this is actually part of the plan and a great thing because if I only buy value-add Apartments because it creates equity and if value add is a function of improving the income then I can only buy a property if i can improve the income.

Numbers for June have been finalized and preliminary figures for July have now been made available.JuneThe unemployment rate fell to 7.3% in June. 87,500 positions were added, with only 43,000 workers entering the labor force causing the unemployment rate decrease.

With it being a 5-plex you cannot qualify for an FHA loan or any other type of loan that would allow you to decrease your down payment.To answer your initial question, no it is not a bad time to purchase small multi family units.  

The appraiser said that it could be responsible for some of the decrease.

That would definitely decrease the cash bleeding, but it seems like I will not be able to achieve positive cash flow if I refi remaining balance to 30 years under current market climate, unless the rent goes back up to $2000.

It could  be stressful doing both and managing a family but I know its what needs to be done for something to change.

I keep seeing my savings decreasing while paying my mortgage and bills, but have no real cash flow right now. 

@Megan Winterberg if I were to offer a suggestion it would be 1) identify your desired market (steady population growth, job growth, rent growth, decrease in crime, household income and value) www.city-data.com can provide a lot of useful metrics.2) identify your submarket using same approach as above.

For example, I find that a lot of properties have been listed for one price in 2017 and then relisted multiple times with decreasing asking prices to a point where they are now sometimes 30% below the last purchase price.

Next, stress test your calculations with lower ARV and lower rents.