Regardless, buying old houses that have been converted (correct me if I'm wrong) is generally a bad idea because they are maintenance nightmares.

If the choice is to "get the seller in trouble" or to convert their problem into mine, I'll pick getting them in trouble every time.

One of my greatest joys is when we convert an idle reader of the site into someone who is motivated to take action.

I'm looking into converting a fairly large SFR into a small assisted-living facility.Of the 162 state-licensed assisted-living facilities in Dallas County, 107 are in homelike settings that care for up to 16 residents.

There is literally no new building in the area and those that were in construction have disappeared from the area along with their families, no jobs, and HD and Lowes are not hiring.Combination of stupidity, arrogance, and just plain bad advice made the situation even worse when the local politicans decided to raise the impact fees for new construction and for converting office space to new usages.Results are of course, empty commercial buildings,and we mean completely empty buildings, whole strip malls with not one tenant, and no new home construction.As far as home improvement and repairs, that is far less then it used to be, as people seem to be afraid to spend the money, causing again less work and talent leaving the area.

could do a 3/2 downstairs if I convert the garage and still sell it for 90k - 100k

Also, does anyone have an opinion on the converted garage?

The general arguments for SFR's that I'm familiar with are - -better appreciation when things are actually appreciating -they are the bread and butter of the RE market, so easier to move them if you want to free up some capital -different quality of tenant that will tend to think of the property more as their home than a temporary residence - if the tenants have kids and pets and accumulate all the junk that one tends to when one has the space to spare, less likely to just pick up and move on a whim -exponentially more SFR's than larger multis, hence many more motivated sellers who will be open to investor-level offers-possible to convert tenants into lease option buyers if you want to use that as an exit strategyYes, one tenant leaving a SFR = 100% vacancy, but one really bad tenant in a multi can also result in several tenants leaving - which won't happen in a SFR.There are convincing arguments in every camp.

Convert ordinary income into capital gains.

When you are selling RE, you are exiting it and converting it into cash.