22 and loving every minute of it! 3 months into my first 4plex.
I graduate from college on May 2nd this year with a degree in finance from Michigan Tech. 3 weeks later I started my first job as a program manager for an engineering company in the maritime industry. 3 weeks after that I closed on my first 4plex. 3 months in and loving every minute of it, even through the minor hiccups.
My typical day starts at 6:30am when I wake up. I'm to the office by 7am, and leaving work for my home depot run by 4:30 or 5pm. From here I have spent every night fixing, repairing, or renovating something.... I am usually working till about 9:30 in time to cook diner, watch a short Netflix show, and hit the hay.
The plan was to tackle a complete renovation of one of the 4 units first. Given my rather significant experience in renovating properties I figured I could do the work in 2 months. Well... that hasn't exactly worked out the way I wanted.
One of the first weekends after closing my parents made the 1hr 30min trip to come help for the day. After a long and successful day we were cleaning up when all of a sudden my dad starts screaming from the basement... not a particularly good sign. I ran down to see sewage pouring out of the old and now broken cast iron pipes. Luckily we work well in a crisis and had a section of my sewer pipes redone within a few hours. We had already been working for 10 hours and that pretty much put my mom over the edge...
Fast forward a month and I was just closing my eyes for bed when my upstairs tenant comes knocking on my door at 11pm... now what?! Come to find out there is water leaking through the wall and dripping onto his window sill right by his computer and other electronics(I recommended he buys renters insurance when he signed the lease)... hmm. The next day after work I crawled up onto the first level of roof to see if I could spot the problem. Yep, the water is going right through the cracks between the brick. With no gutters and 135 years of rain, snow, and ice the mortar had been completely compromised where my pitched roof ends. I paid a home inspector before purchasing. He even went up in his boom truck to look at the tuck pointing. He mentioned it would need to be redone in the future but he failed to point out if you tapped on some of the bricks you could practically pull them out. Luckily the significant damage was only in a few non structural points so I had to take two weeks of late nights standing on my ladder chiseling, cleaning, and tuck-pointing the bad sections. What made this job even more fun were the hornets that built a nest in the holes and attacked me while holding tools balanced on a ladder 25 feet in the air... Needless to say after a few bites I have no more leaks.
Just as I thought I was about to wrap up my renovation on the empty 2 bed I noticed the sound from the apartment next to it literally made it seem like you were in the same room. No insulation of course. I believe in doing things right and wanting to make a place my tenants can call home so out came the layers of particle board, drywall, and then plaster and lath. New insulation, tub and drywall went back up. Thank goodness I did that because I found a cracked pipe that would have leaked as soon as a tenant moved into the apartment.
After all this in just the first 3 months I am still loving it. Real estate is something I absolutely love and my property is step one in me working to reach my goals in life. I understood all these things would happen when I bought the property, I had just hoped a few of them would end up being projects that would need to be done 1 or 2 years in, not the first week, and months of ownership.
My message to anyone looking to get into the game is to be realistic about what your getting yourself into and be ready for the unexpected expenses. Don't think you will have a few years before the problems may come. I am lucky I know how to fix most problems myself or can reach out to my dad for advice if needed. Each problem cost me a few hundred bucks between material and new tools I had to buy. If I couldn't do the work myself those bills would have been significantly higher!
I'm about 2 weeks out from finishing the vacant 2 bed that I was hoping to finish over a month ago. I will post some photos when its all done. Just finishing mudding in the bathroom and tiling the tub surround and floor. I'm hoping to get $700 a month out of the unit. Its a large 1000 square foot open concept unit. $6000 in renovations for the unit gave me updated ceilings, LED lighting, floors, a kitchen with granite counters, and a brand new bathroom. The only thing I am contracting out is the install of the new carpets. Similar units in my area that are outdated rent for $650 so I'm asking about 8% more then market rents. As a note, when I did my financials I planned to only get $650. My strategy is to have the best looking units in my town for the "B" price range so my vacancies get filled first and hopefully my tenants will want to live in the building longer term.