Any experiences with owning a duplex?

I have been on and off with this idea of buying a duplex, living in one of the two units and renting out the other half. Nothing crazy there. Down the road, either sell the whole thing or just rent out my half when i get a house.

Now, besides making sure the physical home/building is ok, what advice or insight do you guys/gals have for me?

Worth doing? Is a top/bottom better then side by side? Is there an ideal floor to rent out vs me live on? (ex: i have ground floor, renter has top)

Seems like a pretty alright way to go about having somewhere to live. I have found duplex buildings in the area for sale under $90k all day long. Most are brick which i like.

Alright, what do you say?

The 4 plex is a better deal but overall quite similar in cash outlay.

You definitely want to live on top.

Not US-specific, but duplexes are pretty common in Europe. From living in one or two over there, I would always prefer a side-by-side to a top/bottom as they're usually a bit easier to get the noise transmission under control. Or maybe I've just lived in too many houses where one had the feeling that the neighbours where dancing on one's head.

It might be worth doing if you a) like the place and b) the rent you can get covers at least 50% of your carry cost of the house.

I would think you would want to live on the ground floor,ease of moving stuff in,not dealing with stairs all the time. But at work,I work for an electric utility,I've noticed most all of the building owners of 2 or 3 story buildings live on the 2nd or 3rd floor

I owned an upper/lower. Lived on lower--it was bigger, and has the ingress/egress advantages. Advice: Screen tenants--get a credit check (you can even have them give you a CreditKarma printout--its free). Do a State's record check--shows any trouble with the law.

I co-owned a duplex for a while with a relative. When they moved out, and we started interviewing prospective tenants, the downside of being a resident landlord started to become clear. The first person to show up said she would be living there with her two kids . . . except that I knew her from work (county prosecutor) and knew she actually had 11 kids, and that she and/or her kids had left every other place they lived in uninhabitable. Obviously, we never would have rented to her, but the thought that we might not have as much background with the next one was enough to convince us we wanted no part of being landlord/neighbors. We sold the whole thing outright.

BTW - that does bring up a possible "half measure", which is essentially what we did. Find someone you could stand to live next to, buy a duplex together and just live in it. From experience, I'd offer 2 cautions with that: 1. be clear about what happens when one of you wants to move (rent, sell, co-owner buys the other out, etc.), especially if the other isn't also ready to move and 2. be clear as to how utilities, maintenance costs and yard work will be split up.

My house started as a poorly designed duplex (shared stairwell ??!). When I bought it post divorce it was all I could really afford and I "rented" the other side to my brother and his dad. Through a couple of life changes my brother moved to the basement and his dad moved out so when Tiger Mom and her kids moved in I tore out a couple of walls and demoed a kitchen creating a much more open space.

To the original point, I like the idea of a duplex but I have to screen the tenant REALLY well because as we have all seen, renters can be pigs. The side by side style seems quietest.

Also, if you are considering building, our was a side by side with a single entryway. It basically looked like a single family dwelling, which allowed us to build it in an otherwise "single family dwelling" neighborhood. I might still have plans around somewhere if you get serious. It was a pretty efficient use of space and end up being 1 & 1/2 bath, three bedrooms per side, and about 1200 square feet per side. With a fair amount of "sweat equity", our construction cost was about $160K about 18 years ago (figure roughly 200K in "today's dollars")

kazoospec wrote: Also, if you are considering building, our was a side by side with a single entryway. It basically looked like a single family dwelling, which allowed us to build it in an otherwise "single family dwelling" neighborhood. I might still have plans around somewhere if you get serious. It was a pretty efficient use of space and end up being 1 & 1/2 bath, three bedrooms per side, and about 1200 square feet per side. With a fair amount of "sweat equity", our construction cost was about $160K about 18 years ago (figure roughly 200K in "today's dollars")

Actually, it's closer to $230k in 2015 dollars.

My parents did the "buy a duplex with friends" route. It worked well for years. The other family moved out and a few different people have lived in the other side. The duplex has a shared driveway which is probably the biggest source of potential friction, but it's still working. If the other side had been less expensive when it sold, they probably would have purchased it to rent.

Seen a lot on here and other places about screening people before they come in as a renter. How far can you take this? Can it turn into a discrimination lawsuit?

I figure i would do non-smoking, no pets at a minimum plus financial stability proven by credit check?

I also liked the idea someone mentioned about going in halfers with a family member or someone. Thats an idea.

In reply to kazoospec:

You've got to be careful with something like this. I looked into buying a "duplex" in a single family residential area. It had been rented for years that way but the city caught wind of it and forced the owners to change it by removing a kitchen. So just be good about checking into the zoning, ect before taking the plunge.

I rented the ground floor of a up/ down duplex for many years. The 80 plus year old widow was a excellent neighbor and I'd help her out w/ anything. After she passed away the landlady thought she did due diligence w/ prospective tenants (unadvertised/ word of mouth). Yoi.

Three tenants followed. They were all in-yur-business types, one even ratted me out to my steady gf for having a spare gf over. Another would have her mother, sister, nieces and nephews spend the weekend and a hootenanny would ensue on early weekend mornings. The last was a recently divorced guy who brought bar trash home after closing time. Evidently he liked screamers as that's what it was at 2:45 a.m. when I had to be up at 5 a.m. for work. 'berkeley me, berkeley me, berkeley me' got pretty berkeleying old.

I had first refusal when landlady decided to sell and bought this place primarily because of the location. I could bag $500/ month easy for the other apartment but after those clusterberkeleys decided I didn't need neighbors anymore.

What I learned:

Location, location, location.

Don't advertise publicly. Screen, screen, screen. Tenants lie. Even church people can be a PITA. Nice guys sometimes ain't so nice particularly w/ bar trash at 2:45 a.m.

As owner, live upstairs.

I manage the duplex next door to my house. Having both sides rented at the same time seems to be impossible, not sure why. We screen HARD though after some of the really "winners" we've had in there before. Rent from one side pays the taxes (duplex is paid off) so anything above that is bonus.

I've learned that things break in twos. Both water heaters crapped out at once, as did both A/C units. Overall the duplex pays for...itself. It is just a self supporting asset as this point. More thank likely the duplex owners are going to move into the unrented side and sell their main house in the city (downsizing, no need for a big house when the kids are gone).

slefain wrote: Overall the duplex pays for...itself. It is just a self supporting asset as this point. More thank likely the duplex owners are going to move into the unrented side and sell their main house in the city (downsizing, no need for a big house when the kids are gone).

I think this is the case for most rental units until you get into a 3-4 unit and above. Economies of scale and all. There are exceptions, of course, but in general from my research it made sense when you live in one side and the other pays [part of] your mortgage.

For my parent's house, it actually had shared infrastructure. One heater, one water heater, etc. When one side ended up going up for rent for a while, we had to separate them.

The problem with renting both sides of a duplex is the principle of crappy people. If one side goes empty, it's difficult to get a new tenant who's better than the remaining one. It can become a downhill slide that's only rectifiable if you manage to get both sides empty at the same time. Having a live-in landlord helps a lot.

My parents also own a rental duplex. They've been lucky other than the initial batch of first-year engineering students, now they have long-term tenants with families who think of it as their home. The thing's in great shape. The location helps, that part of town has shot upmarket.

mrjre42 wrote: In reply to kazoospec: You've got to be careful with something like this. I looked into buying a "duplex" in a single family residential area. It had been rented for years that way but the city caught wind of it and forced the owners to change it by removing a kitchen. So just be good about checking into the zoning, ect before taking the plunge.

You are correct. We had to get a variance before we built it. The "single family home" exterior appearance was critical in getting that variance.

The only thing I know about them is I won't live in another. I dont want to lose my stuff again because someone else owns a E36 M3ty toaster.