We'll give you a number on your Brownsville duplex based on the building itself - no repairs, no agent commission, and no waiting out a lease. Send the rent roll and leases once we're under contract, not before.
A property we actually bought. No address and no names — the situation is the point.
A duplex, two tenants, and only one of them had to move
A couple going through a divorce, and a duplex between them. Both units were rented, both were let well under what they should have been, and the whole thing had been managed loosely for a long time — which is what tends to happen to a property while two people are busy separating.
The condition explained the rents. The air conditioning leaked. There were holes in the floor that somebody had dealt with by laying carpet over the top of them. It needed a roof, new subflooring underneath that carpet, and both bathrooms and the kitchen doing properly.
We closed, and then had to make a decision about two people's homes.
The tenant in the main house was a decent man who was not willing to pay market rent — and honestly, for a house in that state, he was right not to. But the work that needed doing could not be done around somebody living there. So we offered him cash for keys, he took it, and he moved on his own terms with money in hand.
The gentleman in the detached unit at the back is still living there today. There was never any reason for him to move, so he did not.
That is usually how this goes, and it is worth saying plainly because people assume the opposite: buying an occupied building does not mean clearing it. We needed one unit empty to do real work. We did not need the other one, so we left it alone.
