We built a single family home version of a 2 bed 1 bath with surface parking at cost with no profit all in with land for 175k in newark ohio, a suburb of columbus ohio. when we push that to 3 units and closer to the city for our build to rent model the numbers go way better. a 30k slab for a single family home is 30k, a 30k slab for a triplex is 10k a door. we designed a 2 bed 1 bath design at 668 sq ft and it's very good layout even I would live there, but I would never build anything that small again. there's no economies of scale. you need density and shared lines, resources, shared roof shared slab, shared windows, etc the cost goes way down.

Quote from @Devin James: Gross Margin is an important calculation for developers/builders.Gross Margin = Gross Profit / RevenueWe shoot for a 20% gross margin on our New Construction HomesReal #’s:Home Sales Price: $374KClosing Cost: $18,700Cost of Construction: $258KLand Cost: $30KGross Profit = $67K$67K/$374K = 17.9% Gross MarginCame slightly short of our goal of 20%Homes Values and Build Costs are constantly fluctuatingI wish we had a crystal ball build larger homes. average new build in our market is 2200 square feet, 4 beds, 3 baths, 2 car garage and sells for 515k. construction costs lower if design is good and find the median or average home sale price and push that up. my guess is you built too small. 347k is cheap. we target 429-479k price range in columbus ohio for single family homes and also only purchase close to urban core where premiums are 20% higher and we build smaller like 1500 sq ft where price per square foot goes up. 

I plan to stay in this general area for at least the next 20 years and think buying real estate would be a great way to diversify my investment portfolio.So in almost any scenario you will come ahead buying vs renting over twenty years probably well less than half of that, but the investment you are making is a long term investment you probably won’t be able to leave after a year or two and rent for more than your mortgage, I’d really think about where you want to live medium-long term, than any investment metric, because the longer you stay the better the investment looks, and if you can move out sooner great, but I’d guess at minimum you’d have to stay 5 years before rents would catch up to your mortgage. 

Good for you for getting ahead of the curve.

Did the PM push you to be aggressive in pricing?

I would push for very low or no money down but having a Realtor that needs to have their fee paid it may still not work.Look up the owner if possible through truepeoplesearch.com and call them up directly.

You can drop the move-out part and just go with the buy-for part if you don't want to push them out.

They need to push out more help for smaller landlords.

@Timothy Frazier Yes, the only reason to use HML as a down payment is if the property is "mostly turnkey" AND you don't have the funds to renovate AND you have strong CMA comps from a real estate agent that supports that the fact that you are buying a property that is under valued AND your renovations would push that so that you could refinance.

You have a head full of ideas, and that is a good thing.