What Is Price Per Door in Multifamily Real Estate?
Price per door is the total acquisition price of a multifamily property divided by its number of units. It is one of the fastest ways to compare apartment deals within a market, typically ranging from $60,000 per door in tertiary markets to over $400,000 in gateway cities.
Price Per Door Formula
The calculation is straightforward. Divide the total purchase price by the total number of units in the property.
Example: A 120-unit apartment complex sells for $18,000,000.
Typical Price Per Door by Market Tier
Price per door varies dramatically by geography, asset class, and vintage. The table below provides approximate ranges for stabilized Class B/C multifamily properties as of 2025/2026.
| Market Tier | Example Markets | Price Per Door Range |
|---|---|---|
| Gateway | New York, San Francisco, Boston | $300,000 - $500,000+ |
| Sun Belt | Dallas, Phoenix, Atlanta, Tampa | $150,000 - $250,000 |
| Secondary | Indianapolis, Memphis, Kansas City | $80,000 - $150,000 |
| Tertiary | Smaller MSAs, rural college towns | $40,000 - $80,000 |
Source: Ranges based on NMHC research data and CBRE multifamily research. Actual pricing varies by asset class, vintage, and condition.
When to Use Price Per Door vs Price Per Square Foot
Price per door works best when comparing properties with similar unit sizes and configurations within the same submarket. It breaks down when unit mixes vary significantly.
Use price per door when:
- Comparing garden-style apartments in the same MSA
- Quick screening of offering memorandums to decide if a deal warrants deeper analysis
- Benchmarking acquisition cost against replacement cost per unit
- Communicating deal economics to LPs and investment committees
Use price per square foot when:
- Comparing properties with different unit mixes (studios vs three-bedrooms)
- Analyzing mid-rise or high-rise properties where unit sizes vary widely
- Comparing across asset classes (multifamily vs office vs industrial)
Many experienced underwriters use both metrics in tandem. Price per door gives you a fast gut check, while price per square foot normalizes for unit size differences.
Quick comparison
| Factor | Price Per Door | Price Per SF |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Same-market, similar unit mixes | Cross-market, mixed unit types |
| Data needed | Price + unit count | Price + total square footage |
| Weakness | Ignores unit size variation | Harder to benchmark intuitively |
Why Price Per Door Matters in Underwriting
Price per door serves as an early filter in deal screening. When a new offering memorandum arrives, comparing the asking price per door to recent comps tells you immediately whether the deal is in the right ballpark.
It also helps quantify replacement cost. If new construction costs $200,000 per door and an existing stabilized property trades at $120,000 per door, you have a meaningful discount to replacement cost, which provides a margin of safety.
For value-add investors, the spread between current price per door and post-renovation price per door (based on market comps) frames the total return potential. This "all-in cost per door" includes the purchase price plus renovation budget divided by unit count.
All-In Cost Per Door for Value-Add Deals
For value-add acquisitions, the purchase price per door only tells half the story. The "all-in cost per door" adds renovation budget, closing costs, and any capital expenditures to the numerator.
Example: A 100-unit property purchased for $12,000,000 with a $2,000,000 renovation budget and $400,000 in closing costs.
Comparing this all-in cost to the price per door of recently renovated comps in the same submarket tells you whether the value-add spread is attractive. If renovated comps trade at $175,000 per door and your all-in cost is $144,000, the implied margin of $31,000 per door represents the potential value creation.
This metric is especially useful when presenting deals to investment committees. It provides a clear, intuitive measure of the total capital commitment per unit and the gap between basis and market value.
Price Per Door vs Replacement Cost
Replacement cost is the estimated expense of building a comparable property from scratch, including land, construction, soft costs, and developer profit. Buying below replacement cost provides a built-in margin of safety.
In most markets, new construction costs $175,000 to $350,000+ per door depending on building type and finishes. If you can acquire an existing stabilized property at $120,000 per door in a market where new construction costs $200,000 per door, you are purchasing at a 40% discount to replacement cost.
This discount matters because a developer cannot compete on rent at that cost basis, which limits new supply and protects your investment from competitive pressure.
Limitations of Price Per Door
Price per door does not account for unit size, condition, or income potential. A 500-square-foot studio and a 1,200-square-foot three-bedroom count as the same "door," which can distort comparisons.
It also ignores operating performance. Two properties at $150,000 per door may have vastly different NOI profiles, occupancy rates, and expense structures. Always pair price per door with income-based metrics like cap rate for a complete analysis.
Finally, ancillary income (laundry, parking, storage) is not captured in the per-door figure. A property with significant non-rental income may justify a higher price per door than a comparable property without those revenue streams.
Using Price Per Door to Screen Offering Memorandums
When a new OM lands in your inbox, price per door is one of the first calculations to run. It takes less than 30 seconds and immediately tells you whether the asking price is reasonable for the submarket.
Pull the asking price from the OM cover page and divide by the unit count. Compare the result to your comp database for similar vintage, class, and location. If the asking price per door is 20% or more above recent comps without a clear justification (like a completed renovation or significantly below-market rents), the deal likely does not warrant further analysis.
This screening step is especially valuable for high-volume shops that review 10 to 20 OMs per week. Quickly filtering out overpriced deals frees analyst time for the opportunities that have genuine potential. Teams using automated extraction tools like Primer can pull the price per door from the OM in seconds rather than manually scanning for the data.
How Market Cycles Affect Price Per Door
Price per door fluctuates with interest rates, capital availability, and rent growth expectations. During periods of low interest rates and abundant capital, institutional buyers bid aggressively and push price per door higher. When rates rise or credit tightens, transaction volume drops and per-door pricing softens.
Sun Belt markets experienced significant price per door expansion from 2020 to 2022, with some markets seeing 30% to 50% increases in two years. The subsequent rate increases in 2022 and 2023 compressed pricing in many of these same markets by 10% to 20%.
Understanding where price per door sits relative to its historical range in a given submarket helps you assess whether the current asking price reflects a market peak, trough, or mid-cycle normalization. Pull 5 to 10 years of comp data to establish context before making acquisition decisions.