CC,I agree with you on so many things, but not this one.Home owners (with mortgages) can be broken down into two categories:A.

We're in Portland, Oregon and very few cases can you hit the 1% "rule", and if you do you have to be creative.I wanted to share a win today that has been in the making for the past 10 months because I think it is a good example of what a low cap environment looks like and what a solid base hit looks like for those that want to invest in small multifamily deals.Here are the details on the property:9-units in an up-and-coming neighborhood Purchase price: $1,550,000Cap rate: 4.5%Average rent was ~$995 and Owner was paying for garbage and water/sewerWhen we took over we immediately had a couple units turn over, which was great because we wanted to get in there to do some upgrades (we do a lot on the sustainability side that include reducing hazardous building materials, energy efficiency upgrades, bike storage, decreasing utility consumption, etc).

I don't mind paying more upfront, but it's hard to gauge which upgrade choices are going to deliver extra return on the investment... 

That was an actual message we received after having to cancel 3 guests due to a broken pipe. 2 of which couldn’t care less.

I'm from the northshore of Massachusetts and recently upgraded to Pro.

We will work on exterior upgrades/curb appeal in the spring.- Refinance a property that was currently rebuilt from a fire.

,  make it mandatory to have the dog wear a muzzle for any time they are outside, and attach a very harsh penalty if this is broken.   

We sold 2 properties recently which were 1st time Harvey floods close to 90%of Pre Harvey comps because they had been nicely upgraded.

I put new roof, paint and cosmetic upgrades and expect to be full by fall.

It’s an old house, do I need to upgrade anything?