Looking for Multifamily home

Member since 2025 · 1 post · 1 vote

I have done 2 house hacks and am looking to do my third. I am refinancing my second property right now and plan to use that money to purchase a duplex or preferable triplex/quadplex near downtown St. Petersburg (have some savings too). Trying to begin scaling my portfolio and also looking at potentially doing a flip.

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Noah Fischer

Investor · Tampa · Member since 2026 · 9 posts · 3 votes

Hi @Alex Payant,

Downtown St. Pete is a solid target for that. One thing worth checking before you're under contract on anything: a lot of the older 2 to 4 unit stock down there is in an AE flood zone and predates the flood maps. FEMA's substantial improvement rule means that once your renovation crosses 50% of the structure's market value, the city can require you to bring the whole building into current flood compliance, which usually means elevating it. That's the rule that turns a value-add into a teardown, and it's the one that caught a lot of people in Pinellas after the 2024 storms. Worth a call to the city on any specific address before you commit.

I'm based in Tampa, my family runs vacation rentals on the Gulf coast, and I'm building a tool that pulls Florida public records to help assess carrying costs. If you tell me what you're looking at, or even better a specific address, I can pull the records and tell you what I find. No cost or catch, the tool is in development and I'm looking for real deals to run it against.

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Andrew PostellPro Member
Lender · Fort Worth, TX · Member since 2016 · 8k+ posts · 6k+ votes
2mo
@Alex Payant any reason why you aren't using the agent you used previously? Maybe there's a reason but at the top of this page is a link for "Agents". Just click on that and there will be several that will reach out to help you find properties.
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Amber Stout
Lender · Tampa/Saint Petersburg, FL · Member since 2014 · 356 posts · 148 votes
2mo
@Alex Payant That's awesome you've done a couple house hacks. That's been my investment strategy as well. I have a couple of investor agents that could be helpful. I'll shoot you a quick DM to understand what you're looking for exactly and see how I can help out.
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Ashish AcharyaBusiness Member
CPA, CFP®, PFS · FL · Member since 2017 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
2mo
@Alex Payant, I live about an hour from St. Pete in Sarasota, so this is a market I know well.

A triplex or quadplex house hack and a flip get taxed completely differently, so it's important to have that mapped out before you close on either.

On the multiunit house hack side, the units you rent out get depreciation and passive treatment, but the unit you live in doesn't qualify, so keep a clean split from day one on square footage or unit count so your depreciation basis holds up.

If the flip ends up being a separate deal, that income is ordinary and usually comes with self-employment tax if you're doing enough volume to look like a dealer, worth keeping that in its own entity so it doesn't get tangled up with your house hacks. On the refi, the cash out itself isn't taxable, but where that money actually goes matters if you want the interest to stay deductible against the right property.

Being in St. Pete, no state income tax helps either way, so the bigger lever here is really getting entity and depreciation setup right as you keep adding units.

Happy to connect!
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Sean O'KeefePro Member
CPA | Accepting new clients | 50 States · Member since 2022 · 1k+ posts · 871 votes
2mo
Quote from @Alex Payant:

I have done 2 house hacks and am looking to do my third. I am refinancing my second property right now and plan to use that money to purchase a duplex or preferable triplex/quadplex near downtown St. Petersburg (have some savings too). Trying to begin scaling my portfolio and also looking at potentially doing a flip.

Congrats on two house hacks already, that's a solid track record. @Andrew Postell's right to ask about the agent question and @Amber Stout sounds like a good connection for the St Pete market specifically. @Ashish Acharya point about keeping the flip in its own entity so it doesn't get tangled up with your house hacks is the right instinct, but I'd push on that a bit further given how you're structuring things.

Entity separation protects the flip from contaminating the house hacks on paper, but the IRS dealer test doesn't really care about entities, it cares about your pattern of behavior as an investor overall. If you're doing a flip at the same time you're buying, living in briefly, and then moving on to the next house hack every year or two, that combined pattern of frequent buying and selling across your whole portfolio is exactly what pushes someone from investor into dealer territory in an audit. And that classification doesn't stay contained to the flip. It can spill over into how the IRS treats the sale of a house hack too.

That matters a lot more once you factor in the Section 121 exclusion, which nobody's brought up yet. When you eventually sell one of these multiunit house hacks, the gain splits between the unit you lived in and the units you rented out. Only the residence portion qualifies for the $250k/$500k tax free exclusion, and only if you lived there 2 of the last 5 years before selling. The rental portion never gets that break and carries its own depreciation recapture regardless of holding period. If dealer status ends up applying to you across the board because of how fast you're moving through these deals, you're not just losing capital gains treatment on the flip, you could lose the 121 exclusion on a house hack you were counting on to be tax free. Worth mapping out your actual hold periods with your CPA before you're three or four deals deep, not just how the flip is titled.

This post does not create a CPA-client relationship. The information contained in this post is not to be relied upon. Readers are advised to seek professional advice.

[email protected]628-241-0888
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Vijay FriedmanBusiness Member
Miami, FL · Member since 2026 · 766 posts · 122 votes
2mo
Quote from @Alex Payant:

I have done 2 house hacks and am looking to do my third. I am refinancing my second property right now and plan to use that money to purchase a duplex or preferable triplex/quadplex near downtown St. Petersburg (have some savings too). Trying to begin scaling my portfolio and also looking at potentially doing a flip.

@Alex Payant
Sounds like you've built a solid foundation with two successful house hacks. Using equity from one property to keep scaling can be a great strategy as long as the next acquisition has strong cash flow and fits your long-term goals. Hope you find a great duplex or triplex around St. Pete!
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Raymond J. RodriguesBusiness Member
Lender · Miami, FL · Member since 2017 · 1k+ posts · 797 votes
2mo
@Alex Payant reach out to @Josh Green. He's done a ton of house hacks in the area, helped clients with the same, and i've helped him finance a few multi families near downtown st. pete!
[email protected]619-456-8311
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Denise SuppleeBusiness Member
Realtor · Willow Grove, PA · Member since 2017 · 979 posts · 643 votes
2mo
Congratulations! You've built a nice foundation already. From my experience, I'd just be careful not to take on too much at one time. Managing rentals and a flip can both require a lot of attention, so I'd make sure you're comfortable with the workload before adding another project.Wishing you much success with your next purchase!

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Fulton Abraham Sanchez
CPA| New Clients Welcome| 50 States · Member since 2016 · 435 posts · 93 votes
2mo
@Alex Payant, hi. You may want to consider the following keypoints:

Momentum & Market: Congratulates the investor on scaling to a third house hack and targeting a strong multifamily market in St. Petersburg.
Refinance Tracking: Emphasizes keeping a clean paper trail for cash-out refinance proceeds used for the next down payment.
Tax Classification: Notes the shift from passive long-term rentals to active flips (which are subject to ordinary income and potential self-employment tax), highlighting the need for proper entity or accounting separation.
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Noah Fischer
Investor · Tampa · Member since 2026 · 9 posts · 3 votes
2w
Hi @Alex Payant,
Downtown St. Pete is a solid target for that. One thing worth checking before you're under contract on anything: a lot of the older 2 to 4 unit stock down there is in an AE flood zone and predates the flood maps. FEMA's substantial improvement rule means that once your renovation crosses 50% of the structure's market value, the city can require you to bring the whole building into current flood compliance, which usually means elevating it. That's the rule that turns a value-add into a teardown, and it's the one that caught a lot of people in Pinellas after the 2024 storms. Worth a call to the city on any specific address before you commit.
I'm based in Tampa, my family runs vacation rentals on the Gulf coast, and I'm building a tool that pulls Florida public records to help assess carrying costs. If you tell me what you're looking at, or even better a specific address, I can pull the records and tell you what I find. No cost or catch, the tool is in development and I'm looking for real deals to run it against.
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