Investing: Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Buy Multifamily Properties

When you sit down and examine the advantage of owning multifamily properties, you will be amazed at the multitude of benefits. While other avenues of income generation offer some attractive incentives, owning multifamily properties brings many great things to the table. Let us explore these advantages:

1. You can outsource your property management to professionals. You don't have to be bothered by tenants and toilets. Even if you have smaller apartment properties, you can hire property managers. Leave the headaches to them and go on vacation! The apartment property doesn't own you; you own the property.

2. You can buy with NONE of your own cash. You can raise private money to cover any cash requirements. You will find that it's easier to get financing on apartments and that the MORE you borrow the LESS they look at the borrower's credit. In some instances, they don't even look at the borrower's credit but at the borrower's assets instead.

3. Apartments are made to cash flow even with nothing down. This means that instead of there being one house with one roof generating only one source of income, you have one roof with possibly multiple apartments under it creating multiple income streams. You have economy to scale. Apartments are designed to be income-producing properties.

4. Better leverage of your time and effort. Think about it. What would you rather do? Look for ten houses or a ten-unit apartment building? On the flip side, wouldn't you rather sell a ten-unit apartment than sell ten houses? Of course! You have more leverage of your time.

5. The value of income properties is based on income. This is a function of Net Operating Income (NOI) and you can create value by raising the rents and cutting the expenses. This is a very predictable process. You can determine how much the property is worth based on how much you raise the rents.

6. Less competition. There are less people out doing multifamily apartment deals than single family deals because they lack mindset and they lack specialized knowledge. They have limited themselves by the mindset that says they must graduate from single-family homes to multifamily apartment properties.

7. There is less risk. With multiple tenants you have multiple revenue streams. If you lose one client, it's not the end of your business. On the other hand, if you are relying on a house as your sole source of income and you lose that tenant, you are still pouring money into that house. There is mitigated risk through apartments.

8. Non-recourse financing. The more money you borrow, the easier it is to borrow. When you get to loans of two million dollars and above, it becomes non-recourse financing which means the asset is the sole security for the loan. No one is personally guaranteeing the loan.

9. Condo conversion. This has been very big in some parts of the country such as Denver and Tampa. As an example, you would take a fiveplex, convert it into condos, and then sell the individual units. It is a different strategy because you're putting all your cash forward and then pulling out. It's not a long-term hold strategy.

10. The sub prime lender bust. With sub prime mortgage lenders falling out of the market, there are people cannot qualify for home loans. These people have to live somewhere so the demand for rentals is skyrocketing.

As you can see, the advantages to owning multifamily apartment properties are solid and sound. With so many venues to consider when trying to find something to generate passive income for yourself, you just can't overlook the tremendous value created by investing in multifamily properties.