The fine art of analyzing a small multifamily property.

The fine art of analyzing a small multifamily property.

Investor · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2015 · 227 posts · 66 votes

Hey guys! I am moving to the USA next year and hopefully moving to Houston, Texas. I have been interested in real estate investing since I was a teenager, but I have yet to buy my first property. I started studying real estate in January this year, and I have read a lot. I wanted to start out flipping houses but considering the current hot market and the fact that I live in Norway, I decided to pursue buy and hold investments (not eliminating the possibility of me doing flipping in the future). I am looking to house hack a small multifamily (duplex/triplex/fourplex), whatever I can find. I am about to start analyzing those kind of deals, but I am a little confused about what exactly to look for when analyzing a small multifamily property deal.

I know I can use the rent calculator here on BP, but that doesn’t take into consideration the comps in that particular area. Would you suggest that I run comps separately and then also use the rent calculator here on BP?

Also, let’s say I find a deal that may look interesting (by looking at the physical condition of the property), how do I figure out the costs such as insuranse, garbage/sewer, water etc? I mean, I need to find out about these costs prior to making an offer on the house don’t I? And I can imagine that it would take time to find out about those costs.. Wouldn’t I loose the deal, for being too slow to making an offer on it?

I want to make it a habit to analyze at least one deal every day.

What I am looking for is how an investor who regularly buys these kind of deals, analyzises them fram A-Z :)

I appreciate all valuable feedback. Thank you for reading this long post and for any feedback!

Ps. If you know of any forum or blog posts about this, then please let me know. I tried to search for it, but couldn’t find what I was looking for, maybe I didn’t look well enough!

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  • Doug McLeodPro Member
    Investor · Cypress, TX · Member since 2014 · 496 posts · 205 votes
    11y

    You are correct! You need good comps and you need to know what to expect in terms of taxes and insurance and HOA fees.

    You can check county tax records, call insurance companies to get quotes for properties in the area that are like what you may buy, etc. Also talk with other investors in the area to get "rules of thumb" (like insurance is ~1.7% of value). 

    Utilities are less of a concern because you should let your tenants pay if units are individually metered or use a chargeback system if they are not individually metered.  Worst case you include "average" utilities in the rent. 

  • Rental Property Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2013 · 79 posts · 20 votes
    11y

    Hi Naeem, 

    Here is the way I do it:

    1. Find a property that meets my criteria: - No HOA, No Flood Zone.

    2. Get comps for houses sold of the area (look for the same type of property). I consider this for my purchasing offer.    

    3. Then get comps on the rentals in the area, again make sure you are comparing eggs to eggs not to apples. If you are renting one bedroom apartment then get the rents for one bedroom apartment. Also pay attention of the condition of the apartment being rented. 

    4. Find all of your expenses:  Get quotes for multiple  insurance companies. Also get quotes for any repairs that have to be done, use those to lower the purchase price. Garbage/sewer, water are invoiced all together to you by the City of Houston and most of the time you have to pay for it due to one meter per building. There are ways to split the bill between tenants if you wish to. For a dulpex, with two one bedroom apartments (900sq/ft each) monthly bill is about $60.00.

    I will put all the numbers I have into a excel sheet (calculator) and figure out if this is a good property to buy and hold. Here you are getting into the returns you want. 

    Good luck

    Yavor 

  • Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2014 · 103 posts · 11 votes
    11y
    Originally posted by @Doug McLeod:
    You can check county tax records, call insurance companies to get quotes for properties in the area that are like what you may buy, etc. Also talk with other investors in the area to get "rules of thumb" (like insurance is ~1.7% of value). 

    Just curious, what type of properties are you finding insurance at 1.7% of value? What sqft and finishes? I have much lower insurance rates so I'm just looking to educate myself, fairly new to the area. Thanks

  • Doug McLeodPro Member
    Investor · Cypress, TX · Member since 2014 · 496 posts · 205 votes
    11y

    @Account Closed

    Actually, that was a made up number. I have SFRs. My actual insurance premiums range from under 1% of ARV to around 1.5% for Replacement Coverage. The point was simply to develop a useful metric that is close enough to plug in for assessing the deal.

  • Investor · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2015 · 227 posts · 66 votes
    11y

    Thank you @Yavor Tomov for the detailed step by step! 

    @Doug McLeod The insurance percentage, is that a percentage taken from the monthly rent or from the ARV of the house?

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