The Beginner's Guide to Multifamily Investing

Multifamily is where most of the women I coach quietly want to end up. The hesitation is not strategy. It is permission. A duplex is two units under one roof. A triplex is three. A quad is four. All three qualify for residential financing if you live in one of the units, which means you can buy a property that produces meaningful rental income with a low down payment and a thirty year fixed mortgage. After year one, you can move out, keep it as a rental, and repeat. The math is friendlier than people expect. A quad in a working class neighborhood often produces enough rent across three units to cover the entire mortgage, with the fourth unit free for the owner. Even modest appreciation, layered on top of tenant-paid principal reduction, builds equity quickly. The pitfalls are predictable. Underestimating maintenance. Choosing the wrong tenants because you are afraid of vacancy. Buying based on the listing description instead of the rent roll and the operating statement. Skipping the inspection because you fell in love with the porch. The fix is process. Underwrite every deal the same way. Inspect every deal the same way. Screen every tenant the same way. Boring is what makes multifamily safe. Start with one. Operate it well. The second one becomes obvious.