Converting Single Family to Duplex Costs

[Blake Anderson]

Hi Everyone!

I'm looking at living in half of a duplex and renting out the other. Ideally having the other tenant's rent pay for the mortgage payment. Anyways, in looking at the market I think the only probable option is to convert a single family into a duplex. However, in budgeting / financing this I'm trying to find the costs associated with such an endeavor. I've tried looking online but havent found anything really tangible that I can use to budget with. For example, a per sq. ft cost, or some type of list of needed "operations" with average costs associated with. Therefore, I'm reaching out to the BP community for help. Has anyone done this before and have some idea of costs with averages? I know it varies, but looking for averages and some type of clue.

Thank You in advance!

[Dave Savage]

@Blake Anderson check out the many threads about using listsource.  You can even do a map search to create a bounded area for the areas you would be interested in investing in, and then get a list of all the multi-families in that area.   Then find a direct mail company like yellowletters.com and use one of their form postcards and mail it out to the owner's address (not property address).  $400 should get you a number of solid leads in the area of interest that are off-market.