How to buy multi family homes
in Myrtle Beach.

The five steps

How small multifamily works, step by step

1. 1

   Find a building of two to four units. Four units or fewer keeps it on a regular home loan.

2. 2

   Add up the rent roll. That is the combined rent from every unit, not the best one.

3. 3

   Weigh it against the whole building's costs. Payment, taxes, insurance and maintenance for all units together.

4. 4

   Decide whether you will live in one. Living in a unit opens owner-occupied loans with far less money down.

5. 5

   Budget for more tenants. More units means more calls, and one roof or HVAC bill hits every unit at once.

Small multifamily means a duplex, triplex, or fourplex. That is two, three, or four homes in one purchase, one loan, one roof. On the Grand Strand, these buildings cluster in Conway, the older parts of Myrtle Beach, and pockets of North Myrtle Beach. Chapter3 has sold in all three Grand Strand pockets and knows which blocks rent to year-round workers and which fill with summer staff. The boxes below give the ten-second version of the trade.

How scarce they are: the whole Grand Strand MLS usually shows fewer than one hundred multifamily listings of any size at a time, starting near $225,000 for a small duplex and running past $13 million for hotel-scale property. The two-to-four-unit slice of that is smaller still. That is why the good ones go under contract fast. It is also why Chapter3 watches the Grand Strand MLS for them daily and hears about some before they list, from the agents and property managers our team has worked with here for decades.

Who rents the units: year-round workers, and in summer the J-1 exchange students who staff the beach. J-1 groups rent by the person and fill a unit completely; the demand, the rates and the rules are on our J-1 rental guide.

The four-unit line

Four units or fewer keeps the loan simple

Lenders draw a hard line at four units. That line decides the kind of loan you can get and the cash you need.

Live in one, rent the rest

House hacking, the low-cash way in

House hacking means you buy the building as your own home. You live in one unit and rent out the others. Their rent helps pay your loan. Tim has owned rentals in Horry County himself for years, and the building math on this page is the math he runs on his own.

Because you live there, you can use an owner-occupied loan like FHA on a two-to-four-unit building: a far smaller down payment than an investor loan, and a lower rate. Lenders generally expect you to live there about a year. After that, you can move out, rent your old unit, and keep the whole building.

Planning the live-in route? Start with our buyer guides for low-down-payment loans, including VA options. Buying purely as an investor? Look at a DSCR loan. DSCR means the loan qualifies on the property's rent, not your tax returns.

Check the math

Judge the whole building, not one unit

A small multifamily deal succeeds or fails on its rent roll, the combined rent from every unit. Add up every rent. Then set that total against the loan payment, taxes, insurance, and repairs for the whole building.

Our long-term rental analyzer prices one unit at a time. Run each unit, add them up, and you can see the building's true picture. It is the same tool our agents use on every Grand Strand building we show, so the rent figures come from local leases rather than a national estimate. Want to compare other paths first? Browse the rest of our strategy guides.

Common questions

Frequently asked questions