I have been learning and researching about real estate investing for the last 2-3 years and have identified that I would like to utilize owner occupied multifamily units as my entry way into real estate investing.

Utilizing the BRRRR strategy involves you doing work to create equity.

On the other, the lease they had prior to my purchase is much more like a residential lease than a commercial one, with me paying for a lot of maintenance and utilities that is not typical for commercial tenants.

Rather than paying it off quickly, you can utilize your extra monthly income to get more homes under contract.

He stated that all utilities "are included in the rent" which means he pays the utilities, correct?

KFC would benefit when their competitors believed customers still bought chicken from KFC.I do not mean this to be rude, but I must point out the irony.   

Other hurdle will be, how to hook it up to utilities.

Tenants may be paying a premium to get free utilities, in which case your rents may be overpriced when compared to other units paying their own utilities.

My background is in customer service and TV/Film production -- a clear path to real estate, don't you think?! 

I put cap ex at 1000 per door a year ball parking it so 160 a month I am not including the studio in these evaluations because I will live theremaitnance as 85 a monthvacancy of 160 a monthSo over all looks like this so far.40k downprice 158500rents 1700 monthtax and insurance 560monthcap ex 170 monthmaitnance 85 monthvacancy 160 monthall together 975 a monthsubtract that from both units rentAnd there is 725 left over enough to cover the principle and interest and leave like 100 bucks left over for my utility's and such.current owner says the coin laundry downstairs covers the water and tenants take care of there electric and suchNow just 100 left over isn't much only 1200 a year not a very good return on 40k but when I move out and instal a fire escape in the studio as I live there I can rent that for another 550. after I adjusted the numbers for the studio this deal looks really good because I am able to keep pretty much everything the studio would produce.I'd get like 6k a year and get a 25 percent cash on cash which sounds as delicious as it can get.It is in a working c class class area. on the worse side of it. that's were most of the duplexes in the area are to be honest.