Now that you know how to calculate the current value or potential purchase price on the property...let's talk about determining ARV on this asset. 1) Do a complete rent comp analysis to determine if there is room to push the rents higher2) If there is room to increase rents...then you can start to determine what the value of the property would be after increasing the rents. 3) This will then allow you to back track to determine how much you would be willing to spend per door on CapEx improvements to achieve the rent premium.

Now we have to track the repayments too...

It's really about larger commercial properties but I think a lot of it applies to smaller multi-family.

You could afford a multi-family property in the $1MM dollar range.

@Stephen RookerA good rule of thumb to use is $100/sqft, though keep in mind there are a significant number of factors that will effect the end number, especially with multi unit construction.  

Specifically I’d like to know how you would present the offer I have in mind based on the information below.I am a newbie.4 unit class B multi-family in a class B location (close to downtown)List price – $299k.

Investment Info:Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment.

Later down the road, if you choose to get married and have/adopt kids, you can move into a house and now you have a multi-family property on the side that will continue to make you money.

I plan on renting the other units out in a multi family and then sharing my unit with roommates to get to even/positive CF.

Any help would be appreciated as this would be my first multi.