Well, you can pretty much figure them out based on all of the above, but here's a quick list anyways!

• Maintenance tends to be higher as there often is more wear and tear because there can be more people living in the building, more appliances to service/replace, and often more tenant turnover.
• Tenant placement costs tend to be higher as MFH's often have more turnover than SFH. This is just my personal experience... I don't have stats on this other than our own personal experience.
• Tend to appreciate slightly slower than SFH
• More limited buyer pool when it's time to sell
• May take a lot longer to sell because of the limited buyer pool
• Two words: Tenant squabbles!
• Financing can be more onerous.

From the advantages and disadvantages you can see there are plenty of reasons for and against both types so let's give you a real life example of SFH vs. MFH and you can decide which is the better buy!

For this example, we are using 2 Single Family Homes purchased and compare them to 1 MFH (a side by side duplex). The reason we are comparing 2 SFH with 1 MFH is based on purchasing power. Basically, if you have X number of dollars to spend, you want to be able to compare based on that amount - rather than looking at for example $400,000 for a MFH vs. $300,000 for a SFH.

Here's our real life case study on buying single family homes vs multifamily homes:

Bought 2 SFH properties:
1 - $74,500, rent was $720 per month
2 - $72,500, rent was $500 per month
Total cost: $147,000, total rent was $1,220 per month
Total expenses on these two was $1,200 per month
Net cashflow of an exciting $20 per month!!

Today's value: Total of $330,000
Total rent today: Total of $1,348
Total expenses: Total of $1,400 per month, currently a net loss of $52 per month

Bought 1 MFH (side by side Duplex)
1 - $152,900, rent was $1,600 per month
Total expenses were $1,300 per month
Net cashflow of $300 per month!!!

Today's value: $350,000
Today's rent: $2,450
Total expenses: $1,900 (after refinancing)
Net cashflow of $550 per month!!

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