Buying 1st Multi-family - Renovate Now or Later?

[Eddy Berzak]

I'm buying my first property - 3 family building in Westchester, NY and debating whether to renovate it first thing as the building will be delivered vacant or focus on getting the basic fixes and bring in tenants as soon as possible and renovate later down the road.

The units are fine, need some fixing and updating but overall shouldn't be much work. The main reason why I want to renovate is to use the potential that the space has - changing the layout in such a way that would add a full bathroom, install washer dryer, make the living room bigger and facing the river view with an open kitchen.

So basically right now each unit is a 2 bed 1 bath, that could rent for around $1900-$2000 a month

If renovated it will be a 2 bed 2 bath - potentially it can bring up to $3,000 rent for each unit.

I haven't got yet estimates from contractors but a friend told me I should expect $30,000-$45,000 for each unit. 

According to my rough calculation - I should be able to pay back $100,000 loan for renovation within 4-5 years from the added rent that the renovated apt's will bring.

The question is should I do it first thing (if I manage to find the money) and take the risk of it taking more than 3 months which would mean paying $5,000 mortgage every month for the vacancy of the units or should I put it off completely until I get rent coming in and push it to a later date? Or another option is to bring in tenants for 1 or 2 of the units and renovate first floor unit first and then see what I want to do next? In this case I don't know what to tell the tenants - should I let them in for 3-6  months and then tell them to move out? (or let one current tenants move in the renovated unit and start work on the 2nd unit ?)

Any Thoughts?