We bought an old house last year & are finally going to start the renovation on this, our 6th rental property. We paid $25K for it - it was built in 1899. Really good, sturdy shape but obviously needs some work. Right now it is an oddly laid out single family: could be a 3 bedroom but there's another living room with a closet that could be a 4th & only 1 bathroom in the house. We plan on putting in another bathroom by splitting the current one (already shown on the plans) no matter what.

Things to do either way: exterior work, repair some rot, paint, interior paint, 1 new kitchen, re-wire (we plan to do this in separate bundles in case we ever decide to split them), plumbing, attic insulation, etc.

If we decide to do a duplex: 2 kitchens, another hvac unit & ducting, closing off doors, sheetrock work, another breaker box, etc.

If we stay single family, I think the renovation would run approx. : $25K (once rented, all bills & lawn care would be on them)

To go duplex approx. : $40K + we'd have to pay the water/trash ($70-100/month - otherwise we'd have to pay $$$ to have another meter & sewer connection) and lawn care of $100/month.

If these #s seem low to you, keep in mind we are in a rural area & do a lot of the grunt work ourselves & have some very reasonable contractors for the licensed stuff.

Here's the thing. As a large single family, I think we could only get $1100 per month if we're lucky. As a duplex, maybe $1500 total (less lawn & water) for both units.

Here are the two options. I know there are probably better layouts, but we're trying to move as few doors as possible to keep the costs down. Also, if we ever wanted to sell, I think the most we could get is $80K-ish, so the duplex model would be a wash for several years until we'd gotten some rent money back.

I think I know the answer, but wondering if I'm missing something. Not sure if single family or duplex would give us the better return if we eventually sell, however, we are planning to hold it for years for the income so we're not really worried about that.

Thoughts appreciated. Until we decide what to do, we starting on exterior stuff.

What would be the difference in tenant quality between the two? Just as important as rental rate.

We super screen so we've had good luck, but obviously we'd have a family in the large single... with kids, etc. that could probably require more upkeep over the long haul. Our other rentals are small multi families - 1/1 units - and are all leased with teachers/professionals, so no issues there. We have 2 single family (2/1) houses now - both are leased by single women that are great tenants. Believe it or not, at $1100 that would be the high end of the rental market here, so we'd probably have 2 salaried adults w/ kids.

As a duplex, one side could be a 2/1 @ $800 & the other a 1/1 @$700. High rent for here, so we tend to draw good tenants.

My $0.02

Having a full bath off of the kitchen/dining with Our access to the one bedroom seems odd, especially when it's the only bathroom.

I know. It sure does. But there is no other way to set it up without major restructuring. That door is there now & as a single family it leads right into the dining room (!). Currently the bathroom is plopped right in the middle of the house & has 3 doors in it. There wasn't a bathroom inside when it was originally constructed - just a large hallway thru the middle.

Rentals here are strange. People are not generally too picky. Especially with our renos because they end up with much nicer finishes than normally available here. I wouldn't like the bath off the kitchen either, but the apartment would be huge & nice.....

We're leaning towards leaving it a single family at this point.

ah I see. My thought would be to basically switch the two bathrooms (bottom one going into right side, top one going into left side back bedroom). It would give the left side a true master, and put the bathroom off of the living area on the right. Just a thought, plumbing might not allow for it though.

Thank you for putting thought into this, histag.

On the duplex:

The left side (B) is: living room, goes into the kitchen, bedroom is in the back with the back bathroom as an "on suite"

The right side (A) is: Living room, kitchen, bedroom (with washer/dryer room from a porch to the right, also an exterior door), the small room at the back is a tiny bedroom for a child or an office. Too low to the ground to make into a bathroom + we can get the extra money for the extra room.

Either way, one of the bathrooms will open into a kitchen. The way we figured it, the B side get's the "good" bathroom layout & the A side has an extra room to make up for the "bad" bathroom.

That makes sense. For some reason, I was looking at it where the living rooms were where the bedrooms are. Now it makes a little more sense to me