Buy 4 Unit Apartment Building
Many residents in this part of Houston are employed in blue-collar employment industries, which helps to drive the ongoing strong demand for affordable housing. Northeast Houston boasts a sizable stock of affordable inventory, and renters in the area benefit from a lower cost of living, with average rents per unit being some of the most affordable in the metro.
buy 4 unit apartment building
Discover how to buy your first multi family small apartment building. You'll also learn the personal benefits of owning small multi family apartments, the investing advantages of going "small", how to find the best deals, why you should start with 5 plexes and NOT 4 plexes or below, and finally, 5 different ways to finance your first deal, including if you are short on cash or credit. This is an extremely powerful training that may have a lasting impact on your financial future. Here's how to buy your first multi family small apartment building:
Peter, im excited about becoming a commercial real estate investor of multi-unit apartment buildings i have read the entire book commercial real estate investing for dummies, this week i will be getting stated on your next book that i recently purchased the apartment consultant just want to say thanks for all this information and motivation that you provide.
For most new investors, buying an apartment building might seem like a daunting task that's too difficult or expensive to achieve. I used to think that myself, until I closed on my first 12-unit apartment building. I realized that the whole processisn't much different than the process I'd already learned to buy a smaller rental property. The biggest benefit is the scale. With one purchase I was able to double my portfolio, while buying an asset with many tenants to mitigate the riskof a few vacant units hurting my cash flow.
While the barrier to entry may seem high, since some apartment complexes require down payments of $100,000 or more, not all apartments are that expensive. There are also some creative financing options that let you purchase an apartmentwith a down payment that's far less than what you might've thought was possible. In some cases you can actually buy with no money down.
The average cost of buying an apartment building depends on what you define as an apartment building. If you consider buying a duplex, triplex, or fourplex an apartment building, then the average cost goes down drastically. In my market I can buy a fourplex that cash flows for around $100,000. And if I was willing to live in the property, I could use an FHA loan and house hack by living in one of the units for only 3.5% down.
Apartment complexes can be tens of millions of dollars or more if you're buying huge high rises with hundreds of units. However, there is a middle ground of smaller apartment complexes that are bigger than a fourplex but still affordable enough for most investors.
In short: Apartment buildings in general are good investments, but not every individual apartment building is a good investment. Would-be investors must exercise caution when evaluating a property and take into account many factors, including the condition of the property, price relative to other similar properties, local real estate trends, and rental vs. ownership demand in the area. The easiest way to do this is with a rental property calculator that lets you forecast the returns you can expect from purchasing a particular apartment complex.
However, people always need a place to live, and renting an apartment is often the most affordable housing option. There is currently a shortage of affordable housing in most American cities, which bodes well for owners of apartment complexes that offeraffordable to mid-level housing. On the other hand, there is currently a large number of new luxury apartments being built, and those will be the first to reduce rent or go vacant if the economy dips.
The picture above isn't pretty, but it's probably the best investment my partner and I have made to date. This is a 12-unit apartment complex that my partner and I bought a few years ago in rough shape, and we brought it back to life.
We purchased the building from an investor that had recently saved the building from being boarded up, but they didn't do much more than that. The units were in rough shape and had structural issues, leaking roofs, sewer issues, and damaged interiors.
We bought the entire complex for around $270,000, or $22,500 per door. The moment we closed, we had our crew come in and put on new roofs, fix the sewers, redo the tuckpointing, and start renovating the apartments as they became vacant (three units werevacant, and two tenants weren't paying). Over the next year, we completed the renovations and raised the average rent from $550 to $650. By our calculations, we increased the value of this apartment complex by over 100%. We currently valuethis property at $600,000, and it cost only about $130,000 in renovations to get there.
Get real estate software: You can sign up for real estate investment software that focuses on helping investors buy off-market properties. Apps like DealMachine are useful tools for investors looking to find apartment buildings to flip, BRRRR, or wholesale.
There are quite a few types of apartment buildings: high-rises, mid-rises, garden-style, and walk-ups, among others. Make sure to evaluate the current real estate trends in your area before deciding which type to buy, since popularity varies by region. Your real estate agent can make recommendations based on what they see in their day-to-day work.
You also need to decide if you want a new apartment complex or one that will require some fixing up. You can generally find fixer-uppers for a better bargain, but they require a greater time investment and a keen eye for undervalued properties.
The ratio of renters to owners in a region can be a good indicator of your investment's success probabilities. Cities with more renters than owners have more demand for apartments, so be sure to look into these statistics before making a purchase.
Upkeep expenses can take a big bite out of your bottom line. Prior to buying a complex, look up the local going rate for some of the most common renovations, like repainting the exterior of the building and the interior of the apartments for when tenantsmove out.
Working with a real estate agent is the best way to find apartment buildings for sale. They can use their professional network and the MLS to monitor new listings and alert you of suitable properties for sale. Besides a real estate agent, you can find listings in the local paper and online.
To determine an apartment's value using the income approach, start by finding the NOI. Multiply the monthly rent per unit by the number of units in the building, and subtract all operating expenses. Next, divide the NOI by the cap rate that's common in the properties location. You can find the cap rate by speaking with real estate agents in your area.
To finance an apartment building, you need to find a lender that offers government-backed loans, bank balance sheet loans, or short-term financing options. The rates and maximum loan amounts vary depending on the type of loan. Compared to residentialproperty lenders, commercial real estate lenders are more likely to base lending decisions on an applicant's real estate investment experience.
Investing in residential properties such as duplexes, apartment buildings, and condo buildings can often come with larger upfront and back-end costs. Property management needs also increase significantly when making the leap from single-family to multifamily housing.
Real estate investing (like any form of investing) is not only rooted in picking smart investments, but also investing in well-diversified holdings as a hedge against future uncertainty and risk. That means exploring a variety of property investment options beyond single-family rental units alone.
This real estate investment strategy, which essentially leverages the income from other rental units to help pay for your own, can prove quite lucrative if you can find an affordable property in a neighborhood you like.
Another really important item to note here is that you can only use rental income to qualify for the purchase of a multifamily home after a vacancy factor (or vacancy rate) is applied. The vacancy factor accounts for the fact that if a tenant gives notice, you may have a period of time during which a rental unit is unoccupied while finding a new tenant. To compensate for this, you can only use 75% of your multifamily property rental unit income to qualify for the mortgage.
Investing in a multifamily property is a great way to grow your real estate portfolio and bring in additional income. Owning multifamily properties can be a small endeavor or large undertaking, depending on the number of rental units that the property contains.
Under the traditional FHA mortgage program, clients can purchase a home with up to 4 units. The advantage of this is that borrowers can get favorable terms such as a low down payment and they may receive lower interest rates than they would with the typical multifamily loan. In addition, requirements for income, credit and debt-to-income ratio (DTI) are less strict than many other loan options.
The first distinction is that rental income is used to determine qualification. This makes sense because the reason to buy extra units is usually to rent them out. Secondly, because buying additional units costs more money, loan limits are higher with each additional unit added to the property.
As with any mortgage, the first items a lender will look at in determining your income are W-2s, 1099s and tax returns. However, you'll also have a special appraisal done when you're using rental income to qualify called a 1025. In addition to valuing the property, the appraiser will place a fair market rental value on the units.
You can get both single-family multiunit homes up to 4 units and multifamily properties with 5 units or more with conventional mortgages. These can be both primary properties with the other units rented out and investment properties without owner occupancy. 041b061a72