Is this a good BRRRR deal? Time sensitive help w specific deal thanks!

Rental Property Investor
Portland, OR

Posted September 11, 2025 12:45

Hi friends!

I need some help from other savvy minded people on a specific deal I am considering. I'd be so grateful as I keep going back and forth on this. This is time sensitive.

If you are an experienced investor and have a great mind for this, I'm wondering if you'd be willing to have a 20 min zoom call with me. I'd be so grateful for your time and happy to return the fav in some way (I am a high networking machine). If so, please message me. thanks! This is how I made the good decision on my first two BRRRRS. I wrote a message like this and got help : )

For everyone else who wants to comment, I'm going to break down the whole deal here, and I imagine this will be a good teaching for others as well! So thanks to those who take the time to reply.

Me: Casual very part time RE investor (I own 4 properties and 7 units between them). I have done major BRRRRs twice (huge remodels on garages and basements) using hard money and tons of risk so I'm not afraid of it. I also own/run a business doing songwriting and music, so my time is split (and I have a new baby!)

Goal: I want to get another deal under my belt for more cashflow and long term wealth building. So buy and hold (BRRRR).

The House
It's been hard to find many things that pencil for this in my area and houses are $$$ in Portland (avg 500k). I found one that is close. It's located in a good area (near college) and is a 2500 SF 6 bedroom house, with a fully remodeled basement with a separate entrance. The house is in turnkey shape, with tons of new updates. It's vacant (major pro).

Minimum approach: Put a kitchen in the basement and do some minor doors/walls shuffling to make it a duplex (con: utilities would have to be included as I can't separate them easily). This would be 20-25k, total cost.

Gross income: At that, I could rent it for 4800 total rent per month

Price: 520k (can't get them lower). The house is currently appraised for 570k on Zillow and it's def worth it.

Financing (this is the tricky part): I only have 40k in cash and 78k in a HELOC (118k total).
Downpayment could be 10% (OO) 52k
So I'd have to use HELOC for part of downpayment ( which means another liability and payment)

Using the BP calculator after all expenses, heloc payment and such, it shows a cashflow of around $700/month only with an 11% COC ROI. Not a ton of cashflow but decent coc Roi. I could stop here.

Approach 2 (delayed semi-BRRRR):
The house has a 450 SF well build insulated attached garage. I'd convert this into a very nice 1 bed apartment. I could do this for 50-60k (I have done this twice already with my guy).

If I do that, I'd have to use up the rest of my HELOC and also come up with another 30-40k for the rehab in short term loan.

Then I'd refinance and pay off the HELOC and other temp loan (OR I'd keep the Heloc maybe (8%) depending on what the numbers land at.

The ADU would add another 1600 to my rent, and my net cashflow would then be around $1800/month. But a 19.7 CoC ROI.

This is a lot of work for 1800/month. And in this current landscape, maybe it's Ok? Obviously you have to consider the benefits of RE: tax benefits, appreciation, equity as well. As Henry Washington said on his most recent podcast "this is real estate investing."

Challenges:
1. After I file my taxes for 2024 (in the next week) i might not qualify for the refi as my biz showed a loss). If I can't refi, I'd have to pay off that second rehab loan some way quickly.

2. It would stretch me VERY thin financially with little buffer in my bank account for a period of time, or if I can't get tenants or something goes wrong, it could be very challenging. This is hard timing with a baby.

Also part of the decision: I am also considering turning the garage on my house where I live now into an ABB, which would be far less risk and produce similar cashflow, if not more. The only thing is then I'm not investing in other property and building the long term wealth there which I'd like. Ideally I would do both, and In order to do that I'd have to come up with even more money to borrow/leverage as I don't have a lot of cash atm. Feels like a lot of leverage.

Do you think this deal is worth the work and risk in this market? Obviously part of it depends on each investor and what you want and your life. But for you, what do you think? Questions?

Thanks for your time!

Robin

PS here are the two reports if you want to see the full breakdown:

Option one (no garage, less risk/reward): https://www.biggerpockets.com/analysis/rentals/4e19be22-4c7b...