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Posted over 10 years ago

The Beginning

Its official I got my Four-plex! After about a year of searching, what started as a dream of simply buying my first house and making the smart choice turned into my love for real estate investing. As of last month i officially closed on my first place. I started this blog to get feedback, advice, and to invite you all to go on this journey with me. So here it:

Property location: Phoenix, AZ

Price: $254,000

Financing: FHA Primary. 3.5% percent down, and i got the seller to pay all closing costs

Breakdown: 4 total units, all 2 bedroom 1 bath units coming in at around 850 Sq ft.

Advertised: Rent Roll: 700 per unit, 2800 total, plus supposedly 200 per month from the coin operated washer and dryer

Actual after 1st months rent collection: Rent Roll: 2725, 40 dollars from washer and dryers.

Property Good's and Bad's so far:

Good:

  • Brand new roof
  • Newish ac and heating
  • Tile Throughout
  • Large paved parking lot (kinda of good and bad since it has not been upkept in the last 15 years)
  • Long front driveway (for privacy)
  • Large backyards for every unit
  • Huge front yard.

Bad:

  • Zero upkeep has been down
    • Pavements is cracked and has 2 large potholes
    • No parking spaces placed so tenants are parking wherever they want including the front yard
    • Most appliances are not working properly
    • Large leak under neath one units kitchen sink (possibility of mold)
    • No landscaping done at all in front or back (overgrown weeds, mismatching gravel etc)

Here is where we stand! All input, tips, tricks, advice would be greatly appreciated.

Let the adventure begin!


Comments (12)

  1. Grats on your first property! I've just started looking around, but would also like to go the multi-family route for my first property. I'm curious, did you have a home inspector check the place out before you bought it? It seems like many of your bad items would have come up, which would make them not quite that bad.


    1. I did have a home inspector and requested many of the items be fixed but, the appraisal ended up coming in 40k low. So, they said they would wait to sell to someone else unless I took off the menial items that were not per the appraisal. This may have been a ploy and just a scare tactic but i figured in all it worked out on paper so i should just take it. What are your thoughts? Also, have you encountered any problems while looking for a place in... where are you looking?


    2. When you say that appraisal came in $40K low does that mean that lowered the selling price by $40K to move it though? If so then I'd say you made out over them doing some of those repair items but you paying $40K more (Even if it was a FHA loan and it will likely be more money out of pocket then the extra 3.5% on $40K = $1,400 would have been).


    3. I am not 100 percent sure if this is what your asking. We agreed on $295000 as the sales price and then the appraisal came in at 254k. It was not an easy thing and haggling began immediately but in the end they came down to the appraisal price.


    4. Yeah that is exactly what I was asking. I don't see the items you listed as being all that close to $41K, if they would have agreed to do all of them anyway. So overall if you had expected to pay $295K but were going to ask for several of those small repairs but ended up getting it at $254K but have to take care of those that is a solid net win for you I think.


  2. I'm confused. The rent roll makes sense for 4 units but I assume you are living in one since you got an FHA loan on it.


    1. Yea I can see how that would be confusing! I am counting myself as a Tenant for assessing purposes. My plan is to pay rent to my llc so I can accurately account for the profitiability of the property. This was moer of a recent decision, I would love to hear the opinion of everyone on this. Thanks all!


    2. I'm not an accountant and not sure of all the little things that may or may not be an advantage here but a few thoughts initially are: 1) If it is an FHA loan then it must be in your name. When talking about an LLC would you be deeding the place over to the business? That could technically trigger a Due On Sale, but probably not a major consideration. 2) Bigger consideration is you would need to get insurance for the place in the name of the LLC (If it is holding title) which will be more expensive then a owner occupied multifamily. 3) If you are a tenant to the LLC then those payments are income I'd think and potentially you would have to pay taxes on it. Probably would have paper losses offset that but not sure if there would be a net gain or loss of a tax savings that way. I'd talk to an accountant/CPA before setting that up. 4) On the tax topic I think that if you set it up so you are a tenant you would probably lose the possibility of getting a portion of the profit as a tax free Cap Gain if you sell it while you still live in it. Might not be the plan but if it happens that would suck! 5) One advantage I can see is if you did do this I could see if there ever was a law suit that your corporate veil would look pretty good if you treated yourself like any other tenant rather than "owning" one of the units yourself. DISCLAIMER: Again not a lawyer or an accountant :)


    3. That's really helpful advice! I had thought of some of that but your third point had not even entered my mind. Thank you so much. keep coming back to see what happens with this project and as always advice and tips are truly helpful!


    4. Glad I was able to get you thinking about other things. I will actually be pretty interested in hearing what you find out. Not sure I would come into that situation personally, but it is interesting to see if there are advantages to that setup.


  3. As a new real estate investor, I'd love to see how you evaluated the purchase. Did you try the 50% rule? I'm guessing your net is about 1k/month. Congratulations!


    1. I have been really busy lately, I will get my evaulation of the property up soon!