How much can I sell my apartment complex for?

I get this question every few weeks, usually from a Kansas landlord who has held a building for a decade or more and has not priced it since they bought it: "How much can I actually get for my apartment complex?"

The short answer is that apartment complex valuation is mechanical, not mysterious. It comes down to three numbers: your net operating income, the cap rate a buyer applies, and how much deferred maintenance the building is carrying. If you know those three, you can calculate a reasonable value range in ten minutes.

Here is exactly how we run the math when we underwrite a Kansas apartment building.

The numbers in the worked example below are illustrative, not from a specific transaction. The mechanics are real.

What drives apartment complex value?

Single-family homes are valued by comparable sales. Your neighbor sold a similar house for $320,000, so yours is probably worth something close to that.

Apartment complexes do not work that way.

A 10-unit apartment building is a business. Businesses are valued by the income they produce. The framework every serious buyer uses is one formula:

Value = Net Operating Income (NOI) / Cap Rate

That is the whole calculation. Everything else is a variable inside it.

What is net operating income?

NOI is the income the building generates after operating expenses, before debt service (mortgage payments). Mortgage payments do not enter the valuation because they reflect the seller's financing decisions, not the property's income-producing capacity.

Here is the step-by-step calculation:

1. Gross scheduled rent. What the building would collect at 100% occupancy for 12 months at current rents. Not projected rents. Not what the market could theoretically bear in a year. Current actual rents.
2. Subtract vacancy and credit loss. For stabilized Kansas apartment buildings, 8 percent is a common benchmark. If the building runs significantly higher or lower than that, use the actual trailing vacancy rate.
3. Effective Gross Income (EGI). What remains after step 2.
4. Subtract operating expenses. Property management, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities, reserves for capital expenditures. No debt service.
5. NOI. What remains after step 4.

The critical rule: buyers underwrite to trailing 12-month actual income and actual expenses. Not proforma. Not what the building could earn with better management or higher rents. What it actually earned in the last 12 months with the tenants and expenses that exist today.

What is a cap rate, and why does it matter so much?

Cap rate is the buyer's required annual return on a cash purchase of the building. If you paid $800,000 cash for a building and collected $56,000 in NOI, your cap rate is 7.0%.

Cap rates move inversely to value: a lower cap rate means buyers will pay more for each dollar of income. A higher cap rate means they require a better return and will pay less.

In Wichita, KS and across Kansas for 5-to-50-unit B/C class multifamily in 2026, we typically apply cap rates in the 6.0 to 8.0 percent range. Stabilized buildings in good condition in strong submarkets tend to land between 6.5 and 7.5 percent. Buildings with deferred maintenance, higher vacancy, or in lower-demand areas push toward 7.5 to 8.0 percent or above.

A half-point difference in cap rate on a $56,000 NOI building is $53,000 in purchase price. A full two-point swing is $233,000. That range is why the cap rate negotiation matters more than almost anything else in a multifamily transaction.

Worked example: 10-unit Wichita apartment building

The numbers below are illustrative. They represent the type of building we underwrite regularly in Wichita: a 10-unit, 1980s vintage, B class, stabilized property with market-rate rents.

Step 1: Gross scheduled rent 10 units at $900 per month each = $9,000 per month = $108,000 per year.

Step 2: Vacancy and credit loss (8%) $108,000 x 8% = $8,640.

Step 3: Effective Gross Income (EGI) $108,000 - $8,640 = $99,360.

Step 4: Operating expenses For a stabilized 10-unit in Wichita, operating expenses typically run 40 to 48 percent of EGI. In this illustrative example:

• Property management (8% of EGI): $7,949
• Property taxes: $8,400
• Insurance: $5,200
• Maintenance and repairs: $7,200
• Common utilities and landscaping: $5,400
• Accounting, legal, and administrative: $2,400
• Capital reserves: $7,200
• Total: $43,749 (44% of EGI)

Step 5: NOI $99,360 - $43,749 = $55,611. Call it $56,000 for clean math.

Step 6: Apply the cap rate Here is what that $56,000 NOI implies at different cap rates:

That $233,000 swing on the same building, with identical income, shows why buyers and sellers often start a conversation with very different numbers in mind.

When we underwrote a similar 10-unit in Wichita's northeast corridor, the T-12 showed $56,000 in NOI. At our target cap rate for that submarket, the math supported $800,000. The seller's broker had the property listed at $950,000 based on proforma rents that assumed 100% occupancy and rent growth that had not materialized in 18 months. We walked.

What factors move the cap rate up or down?

Understanding what drives the cap rate applied to your building is the most useful preparation you can do before a negotiation.

Buyers apply a lower cap rate (pay more per dollar of income) when:

• The building is stabilized with consistent occupancy and documented trailing income.
• Rents are at or near current market rates with clear room to grow.
• The building is in good physical condition with no significant deferred maintenance.
• The location has stable or growing rental demand and low vacancy in the surrounding area.
• Title is clean and there are no unresolved legal matters with tenants.

Buyers apply a higher cap rate (pay less per dollar of income) when:

• Vacancy is above 10 percent or rental income is inconsistent month to month.
• There is documented deferred maintenance: roof, HVAC, plumbing, or electrical issues.
• Below-market rents are locked in with tenants on long-term leases.
• The property is in an area with declining rental demand or elevated crime rates.
• Code violations or active disputes are pending with tenants or the municipality.

The factors you can influence most are building condition and documentation quality. A clean rent roll, a tight T-12, and a building in good repair give buyers the confidence to apply a tighter cap rate. Uncertainty always pushes the number higher.

Does deferred maintenance actually change what I get?

Yes, through two mechanisms.

NOI recast. If the building has ongoing deferred maintenance (a roof you have been patching, HVAC units running past their useful life), a buyer recasts the NOI to reflect the normalized annual expense for those items. That lowers the NOI and, through the formula, lowers the value.

Purchase price credit. Beyond the NOI adjustment, buyers typically request a dollar-for-dollar credit at closing for documented repair costs. If a roof inspection quotes $50,000, the offer comes down by $50,000. Often $60,000 to $65,000, because buyers build in an execution risk premium for repair work they have not managed firsthand on this building.

The practical implication: you do not need to fix the building before selling. But the repair estimate exists regardless. The question is only who holds it. Fixing a roof before listing sometimes makes financial sense; often it does not. A simple check: if a $50,000 repair would allow a buyer to move from a 7.0% to a 6.5% cap rate on your $56,000 NOI building, the value gain is $62,000 ($862,000 - $800,000). In that case the repair may be worth doing. If the cap rate stays the same either way because the building has multiple other issues, spend the $50,000 on the closing table instead.

How does this compare to listing with a broker?

A broker runs a competitive marketing process on LoopNet and the MLS, trying to generate multiple offers. In the best case, this produces a price at or above a direct buyer's number. In every case, it also means:

• A sales commission of 4 to 6 percent of the sale price.
• A 4-to-6-month process from listing to closing.
• Buyer due diligence periods when the deal can fall apart.
• Possible lender-required repairs if the buyer finances conventionally.
• Carrying costs (mortgage, taxes, insurance) for every month the building sits under contract.

A direct buyer like Kallpa closes in 14 to 45 days, pays no commission, and does not depend on a lender's sign-off. The offer is typically not the top of a competitive market range. The value is certainty, speed, and no commission drag.

On a $56,000 NOI building, a 6% broker commission on an $862,000 closing is $51,720. For some sellers, that math makes the direct buyer path worth examining before the timeline benefits even enter the calculation.

When does selling to a direct buyer make sense?

It is a good fit when:

• You need to close in 60 days or less for tax, estate, or personal reasons.
• The building has deferred maintenance that would trigger lender-required repairs on a conventional sale.
• Tenants are difficult to work around for showings or the building is partially vacant.
• You want a certain close, not a 4-to-6-month process that may or may not produce a buyer.
• The broker commission and carrying costs would materially reduce your net proceeds.

It is the wrong fit when:

• The building is stabilized, in excellent condition, and you can afford to wait six months.
• You have an existing broker relationship and the local market is competitive for your asset class.
• You are doing a 1031 exchange that requires the highest possible gross proceeds.
• The building is large enough (50-plus units) that institutional buyers will compete for it on the open market.

What do you need to get a preliminary number?

Four pieces of information and one conversation.

1. Address. We look up the county assessor record, tax history, and submarket data immediately.
2. Unit count and unit mix. Studios, one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms: each affects rent potential and the applicable cap rate.
3. Current rents. What you are actually collecting per unit per month right now. Not a projected number. What is on the leases today.
4. T-12 income and expense statement. Trailing 12 months of actual income and actual expenses. If you do not have a formal T-12, a bank statement summary or QuickBooks export is a workable starting point.

From those four inputs, we can give you a preliminary value range in one conversation. It is not a binding offer, but it is an honest one based on how we actually underwrite. If the range works for you, we move to a full underwrite: a walk of the property, a rent roll review, and an expense audit. If the range does not work, you have spent an hour and know exactly where the gap is.

For a breakdown of what we pay in specific Wichita submarkets, our cap rate guide by neighborhood covers the ranges we apply in 2026 and the factors behind them.

If you are still working out whether now is the right time to sell, when should I sell my apartment complex covers the financial and timing signals most owners weigh before starting this process.

Ready to run the numbers on your building? Reach me directly. I walk properties in Wichita regularly and can give you a preliminary range before a site visit. For more on what we look for across the state, the Kansas market page covers our full Kansas buy box.