How do I buy an apartment

[Igor Zaytsev]

Hello, I am very new to Apartment investing. I am trying to figure out the steps and in what order I need to do them in to buy my first deal. Iam looking into a 16 unit apartment near university of Washington. It's a used for student housing and has a cap rate of 11%. He is asking 1.8M for it. I currently have $300k to put into this deal and am looking for a partner so that we can secure a loan. I'll also look into a management company as well as a contractor. My question is at what point in the deal do you typically go and walk the property to get estimated repairs. It seems like I need to do that before anything? I need to have all these estimates to take to a potential partner and then to the bank. Any one have a recommended read on the detailed steps to putting a deal like this together? Much appreciated.

[Jeff Greenberg]

@Igor Zaytsev I would start out with Dave Lindahl's book Multifamily Millions.

Start with an Letter of Intent (LOI). This is a non binding agreement on the price and timing of the inspection period and closing. I usually wait until I have the property under contract prior to flying out. Prior to that i will some other than the broker provide an opinion on it. You can contact a PM or someone from BP to look at it for you. It would be a good idea to have them sign an Non-compete Non Disclosure (NCND) doc if you do not have it under contract. There is also a company called wegolook.com that will out and look the property over and answer some specific questions.

Unless you are a contractor, you are going to need a property inspector to look over the property and give you a ballpark on repair costs.  We usually don't go to the expense of an inspector until we have walked the units and are pretty committed to the deal.

Management is key especially with student housing.