In virtually all markets the days of purchasing a rent ready property at retail off the MLS is not going to save the house hacker money in the initial years.

I’ll take any initial advice this community is willing to share.

I did receive some pings on the side when I sent my initial post and I'll be reaching out to people that responded to confirm you're still in and shoot you a Zoom link.

This initial project will make you feel more confident about handling small multifamily places.

This is because the best cash flow it typically on the properties with the lowest appreciation and rent growth outlooks.Give me a quality market for a long hold over initial cash flow every time.  

That's always my least favorite part of taking on a new managed property is going through what is needed with the owner, because it's always expensive and they're always under-equipped.After the initial setup it's the same. 

Use your initial purchases as case studies of how you can effectively manage their money and expectations responsibly.

I even ran water from the sinks and tubs when I did the initial walk through.

Deals showing 7%+ in B areas are either:priced very aggressively (often off-market),lightly underwritten, orrelying on short-term assumptions that don’t hold long-term.In most cases, 7%+ CoC in today’s environment is coming from one of three places:C-class risk (which you’re already avoiding),Value-add execution (rent bumps, expense cleanup, operational inefficiencies),Creative structure (seller carry, rate buy-downs, lower leverage, or higher equity checks).Personally, we’ve adjusted expectations on initial cash-on-cash in B areas and focus more on:durability of the asset,rent growth over 24–36 months,and total return rather than Year-1 cash flow optics.If you’re underwriting clean, long-term B-class assets at 5–6% CoC and they still make sense after stress-testing, that’s not a miss — that’s the current market.

My initial thought is to use the cash flow from the other three properties to pay off the fourth house in 4-5 years.