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Having recently purchased a 4 family home (2years ago) I now realize all the wrong moves I made and want to share them with others so they can hopefully avoid them totally. For starters we purchased too quickly we did our research for over a year and tried to find the perfect house but we were buying at the wrong time! After being out bid on all the houses we wanted and the prices constantly rising we were afraid we would not be able to get into anything, so when we found a house we moved very quickly and did not do enough research about the house!

Our lack of research lead to us buying a house at too high of a price and without realizing what it needed! We were aware of the need to fire code however this was said to cost between $5000 and $10000 at the most (by our Realtor who was also their Realtor) this actually ended up costing us over $30000 with everything and took over a year to get approved when they only give you 30days from purchase date! We were in a lot of trouble by the city due to our inability to have it done fast due to the lack of funds!

Our second HUGE mistake was to use the same Realtor! We had this Realtor all along who was related to us, who ended up being the sellers Realtor as well. We felt that we were safe with her being family and basically our lack of clue in the subject matter. She was out for herself totally and did not help them or us and we both got a raw deal in the end but she got a huge commission! Never overlook small details and take what you may think is the easier route, it will never work out that way.

Finally, out biggest mistake was to not actually do our own in depth inspection of the house! We decided to do minor updating such as take down the wallpaper and paint which then led to the walls actually falling down! The walls were horse hair plaster which for those who do not understand what that is, it is terrible! It is actually made of horsehair and plaster they used it years ago and it is awful. The walls actually fell down which then led to the inspector for the fire coding seeing the really old dangerous wiring in the wall which we then had to be replaced also! Basically we ended up having to gut the entire place and over $40000 in work just to one apartment!

All of the apartments had problems that were under the surface that cost money we were not ready to spend, and we did not realize was necessary. After all is said and done and the place is fixed and nicer, we now have the problem of keeping it fully rented! The whole idea of a four family and the rent paying the mortgage sounds like a great idea but stop for a second and think....... if it was that easy wouldn't everybody do it!??

I do not regret having an investment property for the future however if I had taken my time and done the proper research I can guaranty that I would not have had as many issues and I would not have ended up with this property! To all looking to buy just remember that there will be another house and there will be an opportunity to purchase the right house so take your time and be very careful!