Multifamily / Apartment Investors - Start small or Big?

[Terry Wood]

Hello BP and Apartment aficionados,

I have heard many seasoned investors say start small and grow bigger. I have also heard them say in retrospect they wish they had started from the beginning or at least sooner with 50 to 100+ unit complexes.

If you had to start all over again from scratch which road would you choose and what would your strategy be? 

Please share your background (how you started & where you are today) and any major thing(s) that made the difference for you to step into bigger properties?

Many thanks,

Terry

[Arlan Potter]

I like the posts that have the newbie that wants to jump in and buy an apartment complex right out of the box. I guess that is ok, I mean its not rocket science. Just a lot to learn and to manage.

I started with one fix it up cheap house in 2003. Then another , and another, and 10 years later 55 units, mostly sfr's, and duplexs, and a quad. We are now looking to purchase several small apartment complexes, but it would have been very difficult without the track record we have with our current portfolio of properties. We have about $1,500,000 in equity on our SFRs, and years of rental experience, so the banks take me seriously when I say I want to borrow to buy  apartments.

I still like houses, I can make better profit and they are easy to sell if you want out. It can be difficult to sell apartment complexes. Only investor buyers.