The duplex located at 21 9th Avenue South East in Aberdeen, South Dakota is FOR SALE by Owner.

Apartment One

The main floor apartment has been recently updated.  It has new kitchen counter top, new stainless steel sink with goose neck faucet.  The kitchen also has newly painted cabinets and new oak laminate flooring.  The bathroom was recently updated as well and has a new bathtub with sliding glass doors, a new sink and vanity and new tile floors and walls.  All of the hardwood floors in this unit were stripped, sanded and refinished in 2009.

This unit has 2 large bedrooms with an amazing amount of closet space.  Each bedroom has double pocket doors so they can be opened to give full access to the approximately 700 square feet of living space.

Apartment Two

The second story apartment was also recently updated with laminate flooring through out the entire space.  Tile was installed int he bathroom and the entire apartment was repainted in 2011.

This unit has a more traditional 2 bedroom 1 bath layout, with ample closet space and a room off of the living room that could double as a nursery or an office.  This unit is also approximately 700 square feet.

Investment Property

If you are looking for a fast cash-flowing duplex as an investment property 21 9th Avenue Southeast might just be the perfect fit.  Considering the close proximity to Northern State University, keeping these units rented would be no problem.  The only utilities that the landlord currently pays are water and heat.  These come to about $200 per month.

Apartment One Rent:  $500

Apartment Tow Rent: $550

When you purchase this home for $75,000 the monthly mortgage payment would be approximately $449.66 on the 30-year note at 6%.  With both units rented you could realize over $400 each month above mortgage and utilities.  That is just under $5,000 per year in income.

The Story

In May 2008, I was living in Mobridge, South Dakota.  I took a job with Centennial Homes here in Aberdeen, but with any new job I did not want to buy a house because you never really know how things will go.  My wife and I decided to buy a duplex close to the campus of Northern State University.  The ideas was that if the new job did not pan out we could always rent the apartments and would not be out our investment.  We knew that keeping apartments rented in a college town would be easy.

With the help of Sandy Swingler of First Premier Realty, we found the property at 21 9th Avenue South East.  When we first toured the home we were only partially impressed.  I say partially because the upstairs apartment had recently been updated with new laminate flooring and tile in the bathroom.  This showed us that the house at least had some promise, but the main floor was a different story all together.  The main floor had a horder living there and he had boxes stacked from floor ro ceiling in almost every room.  The floors were covered with decades of old, musty, dirty carpet and the bathroom was something out of a clean freak’s nightmare, but we saw promise.

We purchased the property in August 2008 and immediately began to whip the main floor into shape.  We ripped out the carpeting which revealed beautiful hardwood.  We scraped, sanded and polished floors for what seemed like months.  We painted every room and created a space that was both comfortable and welcoming.

In the summer of 2009 we tackled the outside and replaced the roof.  This was no easy task because the roof had been over roofed three times.  Before we could put the new roofing on we had to remove two layers of asphalt shingles and one layer of wood shakes.  We then replaced any worn roof boards and covered the entire house and garage with new 25 year shingles.  Having done most of the work myself, I can tell you that roofing a house like this was no easy task.

Looking back, I really wish that I had taken before and after photos of the work that we did.  Refinishing the hardwood floors made a world of difference in the appearance of the inside, as did the fresh coat of paint in each room.  The biggest improvement was removing the bathroom and totally reworking it.  We ripped out the damaged flooring and replaced it with new sub floor which was screwed and glued.  The sink and vanity was replaced with a new more modern one.  The old tub was removed and replaced with a new one complete with sliding glass shower doors.  Then the walls and floor were covered in ceramic tiles.

Next we tackled the kitchen where we replaced the old counter top with new laminate.  We also fully tiled the back splash and created a nice tile mosaic behind the stove.  Finally we installed a new stainless steel sink and goose neck faucet.  After painting the cabinets the kitchen has a much better look.