Providence (RI ) / Fall River (MA) / New Bedford (MA)

[Account Closed]

Hi BiggerPockets, 

I am interested in acquiring my first investment property/properties. I am located in Boston, MA, but I am right now looking at Providence, RI, and Fall River / New Bedford, MA as potential options. Ideally, I would like to acquire 2-3 unit multifamilies. I would like to invest around $80K into 2 separate multifamilies...$40K each. Assuming 20% down payments, that limits the purchase price of each property $200K.

Is this budget reasonable for the cities I am looking at?

[Anthony Thompson]

@Account Closed when you’re looking at the lower end of the price spectrum, the usual dynamic of “pick areas you like and then look at the prices to see what ranges are acceptable” is inverted. Instead you end up with “what are the areas that still come up when I set X as a maximum price”.

I will say that, where possible, even in a tougher area you might try to pick something on the edges or bordering a better area. For example, there are some areas of Washington Park that might be closer to South Providence and some that are closer to Cranston.

If you start to learn neighborhood boundaries you may find that something listed in a tougher area actually seems acceptable to you as it’s on a border/in-between/overlap.

As to how to learn neighborhoods or how to find things like that, the old adage of going into an area in the day, at night, during the week and on the weekend is good advice, as well as just talking to people in that area. Older people who have been in the neighborhood for a while will often be glad to tell you what they’ve seen and what they think the trend is, especially when you say you’re thinking of buying a house in the area 😊