Trying to buy a fourplex in the DFW area
Rental Property Investor · Arlington · Member since 2018 · 34 posts · 10 votes
Hello every one
my name is Harith Hadi and I am just getting started here by trying to buy a fourplex around the DFW area and do a house hacking, appreciate any piece of advice I could get here.
I'm currently looking for a fourplex as well. I'm looking for off market properties and sending every fourplex owner a letter. I feel my odds are much better for a better deal this way, rather than off the MLS (Use Realtor or Zillow for free). I do check MLS as well daily. I guess I'll find out!
Taxes: Here's a link to the Dallas CAD (Central Appraisal District)
http://www.dallascad.org/SearchAddr.aspx
1) Type in the address of the property you would like to find the taxes on.
2) Then click the address hyperlink.
3) The estimated taxes will be at the bottom of the page.
My opinion is to 100% forget about the price per square foot.....
Instead:
Find out what the rents are for those units (rent comps from an agent other than the selling agent) and work from that. The market is over inflated in North Texas. My personal opinion would be to work the numbers starting with the rent, factor in your expenses, and determine your operating expenses. Find a sales price that makes sense to you submit an offer regardless of the asking price.
If you're going FHA with 3.5% down, keep in mind you'll have PMI.
All the best,
Since I'm just starting out,there are a lot of thins that are unknown for me.
for example, how can I tell the property tax for every property before I buy it?
What is the SF price around the DFW area ?
What is the vacancy rate here ?
What is the closing cost % to the property cost ?
and most importantly that I lack the network to find the deals like finding the right broker who actually invest in fourplex not just any regular agent.
I appreciate you taking the time to reply...
I have not call any broker yet since I want to suck as much info as possible before doing that.
I don’t feel that I’m ready yet, that’s why I just joined over 25 different groups on meetup to do some networking...
I'm currently looking for a fourplex as well. I'm looking for off market properties and sending every fourplex owner a letter. I feel my odds are much better for a better deal this way, rather than off the MLS (Use Realtor or Zillow for free). I do check MLS as well daily. I guess I'll find out!
Taxes: Here's a link to the Dallas CAD (Central Appraisal District)
http://www.dallascad.org/SearchAddr.aspx
1) Type in the address of the property you would like to find the taxes on.
2) Then click the address hyperlink.
3) The estimated taxes will be at the bottom of the page.
My opinion is to 100% forget about the price per square foot.....
Instead:
Find out what the rents are for those units (rent comps from an agent other than the selling agent) and work from that. The market is over inflated in North Texas. My personal opinion would be to work the numbers starting with the rent, factor in your expenses, and determine your operating expenses. Find a sales price that makes sense to you submit an offer regardless of the asking price.
If you're going FHA with 3.5% down, keep in mind you'll have PMI.
All the best,
In Tarrant county, you can go to the website www.TAD.org and look it up by property address or owner name.
SF price varies by city and neighborhood. Start looking at various neighborhoods to get a feel of what the prices are or get a realtor to check comps. In the area I look at it's between $125-135 a sf for single family homes but if you travel a few miles east from that area, the price drops because of crime rates and school ratings. I wouldn't buy anything in that area of town.
Vacancy rates are low but that to depends on the neighborhood and the price you charge for rent. Last summer I was getting 5-7 calls a day for a house I had for rent. I could have rented out 10 houses if I would have had them. I have one listed right now on realtor.com (613 Ruth, Kennedale, TX if you want to take a peak) and haven't received a call yet and it's been posted for a week. My tenant isn't moving out till the end of February so i'm not really trying right now to get calls. In a couple more weeks, I will put up the yard sign and I also place a 3'x5' banner on the back of a fence at one of my properties that backs up to a busy street. Once I do that, the calls start flooding in.
There are 4plexes in Kennedale and in Arlington that come up for sale once in awhile. Most of them are sold individually so buying the entire 4plex doesn't come up as often. Duplexes are much easier to find and if you're planning to house hack, this might be a better prospect to start with. There are some nice ones just east of 287 and north of Sublet in Arlington. Look around Homestead road. I also used to live in a townhouse duplex in Euless on Argone ct and those were nice when I lived there 15 years ago but I don't know how they are now.
Hi Harith,
I just stumbled upon this post. How is your search going?
My wife is working with a couple that is trying to do the same thing you are, except with a duplex. Just from working with them, I can tell you that quite a few multifamily sellers that we have encountered expect an offer without a showing. I think that's due to increased public interest in your strategy and the strength of the DFW market lately. Not all are like that, but don't be surprised if that's an expectation of someone you are trying to work with.
Second, what specific areas are you interested in, and how much work are you wanting to put into the property? We could possibly be of value to you, because we mail out to some multifamily owners and have been funneling some cash into Facebook ads as well, so we may come across something you are interested in. Also, my wife is an agent with Coldwell Banker, so if you need access to the MLS, we can help you out there too if you don't have an agent you're working with already.
Best of luck on your search, my friend. Let me know if we can be of any assistance.
Best,
Since I'm just starting out,there are a lot of thins that are unknown for me.
for example, how can I tell the property tax for every property before I buy it?
What is the SF price around the DFW area ?
What is the vacancy rate here ?
What is the closing cost % to the property cost ?
and most importantly that I lack the network to find the deals like finding the right broker who actually invest in fourplex not just any regular agent.
I appreciate you taking the time to reply...
In mid range prices, Dallas is more or less 100% price dependent on vacancy rate outside of turns.
We more or less have been a week or less on our last half dozen turns. At least once we get a rental up and kicking.
We dont have any of these, but if you get into SFH's up over 2500 or so and it might be a different story, but in the $1,200-$1,500 range, Even up into the mid $2,000's we havent had any problem with vacancy.
Sf price can be $30K, and it can be $5M. Most rentals are in the $150-200K range. And that generally gets a $1,500-$2,000/M rent.
There might be a few, but four-plexes are really hard to find.