The House Hunt Continues

This whole house hunt­ing expe­ri­ence has been inter­est­ing and kind of bor­ing at the same time. Inter­est­ing, in that I’m learn­ing new things about the real estate world (and myself) through­out this process, and bor­ing because a good chunk of my time has been spent in the hur­ry up and wait stage.

I’ve com­piled a list of prop­er­ties I’ve looked at or con­sid­ered dur­ing my search to find the per­fect mul­ti-fam­i­ly prop­er­ty. Some I dis­card­ed out­right because of exist­ing ten­ants, some because they did­n’t or could­n’t meet the 1% rule, and oth­ers were dis­card­ed because of their condition.

I’ll give you a refresh­er on my list of requirements:

-pur­chase price under $225,000
‑at least 2 units
‑pre­ferred 2 bd with at least 2 toi­lets, but did look at a few that only had 1 bedroom
‑cen­tral AC
‑non sketchy area of town

The pic­tures below are hasti­ly drawn in Paint by yours tru­ly. Not drawn to scale or struc­tur­al integri­ty, but they give you just enough of a clue what they looked like.

House #1: $178,000
Expect­ed rent: $1700
Thoughts: Real­ly nice place with big yard and two full garages in a nice neigh­bor­hood. Both sides were emp­ty, but they want­ed too much mon­ey for the expect­ed rent. Also need­ed some minor cos­met­ic upgrades.

 

House #2: “Hitler House” $135,000
Expect­ed rent: $1500
Thoughts: Seri­ous­ly, the house looked like Hitler with the over­hang. Eas­i­ly beats the 1% rule and looks great from far away. How­ev­er, it’s a flip­per’s night­mare. They slapped new paint and new car­pet over every­thing, and ignored seri­ous flaws. Walk­ing over the floor in the low­er unit made it feel like I was drunk because it was so uneven. It also fea­tured a for­mer porch that was con­vert­ed into a bed­room, and I was con­cerned it was un permitted.
Tax­es were only $1500 a year though.

 

House #3: $129,900
Rent: $1400
Thoughts: locat­ed in a slight­ly sketchy area of town. Meets the 1% rule. It has good vis­i­bil­i­ty and the cur­rent land­lord said it has incred­i­bly low vacan­cy rates. How­ev­er, there is stand­ing water in the base­ment and the walls are anchored in place after the foun­da­tion shift­ed too much. I doubt I could get VA fund­ing approval for it.

 

House #4: $179,000
Rent: $2200
Thoughts: Absolute­ly gor­geous Vic­to­ri­an house from 1880 in a his­tor­i­cal dis­trict close to Down­town. It’s got all the orig­i­nal wood­work in it, even though it’s been divid­ed into at least 3 units. How­ev­er, an old­er house requires more upkeep and being in the his­tor­i­cal dis­trict means even stricter repair options. It’s also been on the mar­ket for over 2 years, which makes me wor­ried that oth­er peo­ple know some­thing I don’t about it. I’d be con­cerned that when it came time for me to resell it I’d have an equal­ly dif­fi­cult time. It does beat the 1% rule quite hand­i­ly, though.

 

House #5: $184,900
Rent: $1675
Thoughts: Nice build­ing in a nice area of town. How­ev­er, it does­n’t come any­where near to hit­ting the 1% rule and no way the sell­er would come down enough to meet it. Also has some weird things, like the sell­er tak­ing the fans and the ten­ants not want­i­ng to move out. Tax­es are also real­ly high.

House #6: $155,000
Rent: $1625
Thoughts: It meets the 1% rule. Nice big duplex on a pri­vate dead-end road with a lot of updates. Some­one got to it before I was quite ready to start look­ing, which I was kind of sad about.

 

House #7: $225,000
Rent: $2300
Thoughts: Meets the 1% rule. Both sides have 3 bd, 2.5 baths and a lot of updates. Locat­ed in a nice area of town close to lots of shop­ping (gro­cery stores, banks, restau­rants, movie the­ater, library) right across the street from an ele­men­tary school.

 

 

So there’s a small sam­pling of the hous­es I at least con­sid­ered buy­ing. Keep in mind the mar­ket is small to begin with, and not much is hap­pen­ing now in the tail end of win­ter. I shall con­tin­ue to keep my eyes open for any oppor­tu­ni­ties that pop up!

Do you have any aspi­ra­tions to buy a rental prop­er­ty? If so, how’s your hunt going?