I have finally come across a property that I believe will be a great first investment property and I would like to share my analysis and thoughts to get some feedback and guidance in how to make an offer as well as best way to structure my financing (30 yr fixed, 15 yr fixed, etc.).

There is a real possibility that the value of this property is the value of the land, less the cost to raze the existing structure plus any possible resale value of the equipment.If there is demand for a restaurant, it might be worth more to the right person.If the building can be reconfigured for some other user that might add some value, too.

I don't mess with major structural issues/foundation problems, just cosmetic stuff so the rehab budget stays low.

It would depend I think some on how much of the work you will do yourself, if any and if you have the time.I personally would buy the gutted one (depending on the structure of course) because I would be doing almost all the work myself and I am pretty sure I could have it looking really nice for less than $30k in fix up.There are a lot of variables.I am anxious to see what others will say!!

You may have to register/license your business, it depends on a lot factors such as location, legal business structure, etc.

And, a nice benefit is that my buddy can write off a portion of travel expenses whenever he goes to visit family because he will be performing a business function.In general, what is a good structure to use for a deal like this?

The way we structure our leases requires them to give us 45 days notice prior to move out and to allow us to start showing the unit least 1 once a week so we usually rarely have any gap from one tenant to the next.We haven't had any problem tenants yet since we screen quite thoroughly but if something were to happen, I guess we would prefer it to happen in an average updated home rather than one that's completely redone.Now if we were to start flipping, we would probably redo everything but for buy and hold in our target areas market rent, average to + average condition, seems to work well.We have seen some renovated units in our areas and they look a lot nicer but the rental premium isn't too much of a difference and it seems they take longer to rent out.

I get two people who don't want to deal with one bathroom so for more then 2 bedrooms I would prefer more bathrooms.In the end it is not dollars per square foot so much as dollars per unit and hassles per unit.

Just a thought on a different structure..p.s.

They seem structured to only provide the full escrow service.I'm in Northern CA.