What to look for/ask during inspection

Question

Tomorrow is the inspection for a 20 unit apartment complex I'm purchasing, I'll be walking through the units along with the inspector. My previous deals were commercial office space/building 4 townhomes; I haven't previously dealt with tenant occupied properties, do you have any advice on what to ask the inspector/look out for?

Account Closed · Answer

look out for everything. How much does the inspection cost in your area?

How much does the insurance cost for a mix use building?

A mix use 22 unit building landed on my lap. And making sure I don't get robbed by the inspector and insurance company. But I don't know if this is your first multi my advice would be to take your time inspect everything so you can negotiate anything that hasn't come to light.

So check all updates on roof, electrical, heating and plumbing

at least 100 amp per unit

Has a sep exit for fire per unit- brick building

Units vacant?

Also be very rude to the sellers agent by asking or probing the tenants how long they have been there and what's some of the issues there having in the units. And the common areas. You can figure out by the first 10 seconds if your going to have ether a professional tenant, complainer, or victim mentality tenant. Keep us posted. Good luck and pm me to bounce ideas of off each other.

Abraham Anderson · Answer

The biggest concern is 8 of the units have HVACs that are nearing the end of their life. The cost of replacing those, plus the other deferred maintenance, will be about $50K. I am currently negotiating with the seller to receive a credit for this amount at closing. I will keep you updated!

Brian Garrett · Answer

@Abraham Anderson So how did the inspection turn out overall? Update on the deal?

Abraham Anderson · Answer

@Angel Dejesus, thank you for the great advice! The best tip for me was asking the tenants directly of any issues, in one of the units I learned of a leak which was included in the inspection report.

One interesting thing I noticed was, the tenants that were the most messy/kept the worst apartments were also the most rude, entitled, etc. While the cleanest, nicest tenants kept apologizing for how dirty their (immaculate) apartments were! I definitely want more of the latter tenants ;).