How to Find Multi Family Homes for Sale in Houston

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Multi family homes have always been considered an excellent investment opportunity.

The growing inventory offered for sale has increased their affordability.

This, in combination with continued strong renter demand and the relative ease of financing approval for these properties, has further increased the popularity of multi family homes for sale among real estate investors.

How to Find Multi Family Homes for Sale in Houston

For investors or brokers interested in multi family homes for sale, the Houston market offers a growing population, strong economic growth, high demand for multi family housing and land-lord friendly housing laws.

With a surge in multi family home building in 2014 and 2015, the Houston area was one of the hottest investment markets in the country.

While construction rates of new multi family homes have slowed down since, inventory remains healthy.

There are many different listings platforms that can be used to search for multi family homes for sale in Houston, TX.

We will cover some of the best national and local commercial and residential platforms, as well as some popular “for sale by owner” and off-market listing services.

Commercial and Residential Real Estate Listings

Here are several commercial and residential listings platforms that you can use to find multi family properties for sale in Houston:

LoopNet Multi Family Homes

With the most on-market property listings of any commercial real estate platform, LoopNet is a great place to begin a search for multi family homes in any area in the nation.

A quick search of LoopNet’s database for multi family properties for sale in Houston, TX brings results ranging from townhomes to 4-plexes to 320-unit apartment buildings.

CREXi Multi Family Homes

Commercial Real Estate Exchange, Inc. (CREXi) is a relatively new but fast-growing marketplace platform.

Their advanced search feature offers filter options such as number of units, occupancy percentage, cap rate, price range as well as a keyword search that can help investors find the exact multi family property they are looking for.

Ten-X Multi Family Homes

Ten-X Commercial differentiates itself as an end to end transaction platform, matching properties to investor strategy, with deals closing two or three times faster than normal.

Although its inventory of multi family homes for sale is more limited than some of the other commercial listings platforms, their searchable database is still worth a look.

After selecting the multi family search option, filters for number of units and occupancy rates are available.

The platform can also be used to search for recently closed multi family property sales, which can be useful for investors looking to get a feel of the state of the market.

Zillow Multi Family Homes

With over 110 million homes in their database, some of which aren’t found anywhere else, residential platform Zillow offers more listings than anyone else, including a large inventory of multi family homes.

Zillow search parameters include all the basics as well as number of parking spots and the type of views and amenities the property offers.

Trulia Multi Family Homes

Beyond its many listings, Trulia offers information on real estate markets broken down by state.

These market insights include a list of properties by county, the top 20 real estate markets statewide and additional breakdowns by school district and neighborhood.

Neighborhood overviews offer information on prices, schools, safety, and more.

HAR.com Multi Family Homes

HAR.com is an award-winning residential real estate search website featuring over 162 thousand properties for sale and lease in Texas.

Searching HAR.com for multi family homes for sale in the Houston area nets hundreds of results, with the ability to further refine the search results with filters such as location, amenities, price, size, number of stories, property age, lot size and subtype (duplex/triplex/fourplex/5 plus).

Heritage Texas Properties Multi Family Homes

Acquired by Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Gary Greene in 2019, Heritage Texas Properties is one of Texas’s largest independent real estate firms serving the Houston area.

Their advanced search feature turns up hundreds of multi family homes for sale in the Houston area and allows you to filter your results by price, number of bedrooms/bathrooms, square footage, property age, subdivision, school district, special amenities and much more.

Search Off-Market with Reonomy Property Intelligence

You might also prefer to take your search off-market and use Reonomy property intelligence to spot Houston owners likely to sell their multifamily asset(s).

Making deals off-market allows you to avoid the middlemen in a transaction—which, in turn, can help you avoid broker fees and other acquisition costs.

The Reonomy platform lets you search for multi family properties and all other commercial asset types in any market nationwide, with customizable levels of granularity.

By doing so off-market, you can discover new opportunities without the competition of other buyers, then get in touch with owners directly.

Near the bottom of this article, we show you how you can identify properties and owners likely to sell using property intelligence.

For Sale by Owner Listings

For sale by owner (FSBO) listings platforms are another great place to search for on-market multi family homes. You may find listings here that aren’t available anywhere else.

Also, owners selling property themselves may be more willing to negotiate the price, since they don’t have to pay a listing agent commission.

There are many different FSBO listings platforms. Here are a few of the most popular ones plus a few examples of local platforms.

ForSaleByOwner Multi Family Homes

ForSaleByOwner has been in the FSBO listings platform game since 1999 and is considered one of the leading FSBO platforms.

Their property type filter allows you to search specifically for multi family homes for sale. You can also filter by new listings, listings with a recently reduced price as well as by property age, number of parking spots, or a specific keyword.

FSBO.com Multi Family Homes

Marketing themselves as the premier for sale by owner real estate website, FSBO.com allows you to search specifically for multi family homes for sale listed as either commercial or residential property.

Minimum and maximum price search filters are available as well. You can also search a database of more than 1.4 million foreclosure, pre-foreclosure, bankruptcy and tax lien listings by zip code.

Fizber Multi Family Homes

Fizber allows owners to list their homes for free and offers sellers an advanced online marketing system with digital property brochures and listing video tours.

Their multi family search filter is easy to use. Additional filtering options include year built, lot size and number of days on the market.

TexasFSBO.com Multi Family Homes

As the names implies, Texas FSBO is a local “for sale by owner” listings platform. They have their own magazine and even offer a closing cost assistance program.

Their search feature allows you to search all multi family homes for sale in Texas with one click or you can choose to search by county, city or zip code.

Examples of How to Search Different Platforms

Searching most listings platforms is pretty straightforward but there are some differences in how each individual site works.

Also, the more specific the type of property you are looking for, the more detailed your search setup may need to be.

Combining a location search with property type, features, and keyword filters will provide the most relevant results for your desired target property.

Below are a few examples of classic searches for multi family homes for sale in Houston, TX.

Houston Duplex Search with Zillow

To search for duplexes for sale in Houston using Zillow, you begin by entering Houston, TX in the search box on the Zillow home page.

This will bring you to a results page showing all current listings for Houston. Begin narrowing down the results by checking Houses under Home Type.

To search specifically for duplexes being sold as multi family homes, click the “More” filter and then enter “multi family duplex” in the Keywords search box.

This will allow you to see all duplexes listed as multi family homes for sale in Houston, TX.

Another option is to just enter the word “duplexes” in the Keywords search box.

Although the results will include some single-family homes, with only half of the duplex listed for sale, many of the results will be multi family homes with the whole property bering offered for sale.

Once you find a listing that you are interested in, you can explore further details about it by clicking on its tile in the results list or the corresponding dot on the area map.

Houston High-Rise Building Search with LoopNet

Searching for high-rise buildings for sale in Houston using LoopNet is as simple as choosing the right option from a drop-down menu and ticking a few property type boxes.

On the LoopNet home page, select “Multifamily,” from the “Enter a property type” drop down menu. Enter Houston, TX in the “Enter a location” box and click Search.

On the search results page, click the Multifamily drop-down menu. Under the Multifamily property type, you will want to deselect all property subtypes except for High-Rise.

Now only high-rise multi family properties for sale in Houston are listed.

From there, you can continue adding filters for number of units, building size, and any other qualifiers you might like to include.

To view further details on any of the properties in the results list, click on the property photo on the right or its corresponding marker on the interactive map.

Houston Fourplex Search with HAR.com

The simplest way to search for a fourplex for sale in Houston on HAR.com is to click “More Filters” on the home page. This option is located just to the right of the green Search button.

On the search page, choose “Houston-Gulf Coast” from the Search Region drop down menu. Then click the Multi Family search option.

After that, scroll down to the Criteria section. Under Subtypes, choose “Fourplex” from the drop-down menu. Select any other criteria or amenities you desire and click the green Search button on the bottom right.

And there you have it, an HAR.com search for fourplexes for sale in the Houston area:

Reonomy Multi Family Property Search in Houston

To search all multi family assets in Houston, you can use Reonomy.

You can search Houston on an MSA or city-level, or you can search for a specific county, zip code, neighborhood, or street name.

Here we search on a city-level:

Similar to how you can on Zillow, you can also draw a custom map shape or radius and only see properties within that area (the yellow highlight below is marking the confines of the city of Houston).

Once you have chosen your location, you can add various layers of multi family class and sub-class filters.

In the Building & Lot tab, you can add filters to narrow your search down only to the properties that meet your ideal physical scope—in terms of building size, age, number of units, whether the asset is in an Opportunity Zone, and much more.

For example, if you want to remove large buildings from your search, you can put a high cap on the number of units, or search within a specific range.

Here, we put a high-cap of 10 units on our search, and are still left with 9,000 multi family properties in the city of Houston.

To discover which of those 9,000 properties are likely to sell, you can use Reonomy’s Sales and Debt tabs.

For example, in the Sales tab, you can search for properties that haven’t been sold in a long time, where the owner is likely to field a fair offer.

Doing that, we’re still left with almost 5,000 properties.

If you then click “Apply,” you’ll be taken to your list of results, where you can begin diving into individual properties and portfolios, as well as continue adding filters to your search in real-time.

You’re then able to access the contact information of true property owners to reach out and make your pitch directly—either to buy or help broker a sale before someone else pounces on the asset.

Reonomy can do a lot of the heavy-lifting for you, but it can often be helpful to visit a few of these platforms to get a holistic idea of what’s available (and what could be available).