Shippensburg, PA Rental Market

[Darren Bailin]

Greetings BP,

Is anyone familiar with the Shippensburg, PA rental market? Specifically if it is a good market to invest in for a buy-hold strategy. I see some multi-fams on the market and was wondering if it is a good market to invest? I live in Baltimore, so only about 1 1/2 hour drive for me.

[Travis Wylie]

I was toying with the idea about getting into Shippensburg rentals myself.  I have 2 investement properties and see that you can find rentals for very cheap, but as @Trey Kunkel Shippensburg is a college town.  I'm actually the boxing coach at the University and know a lot of the students.  The reason I'm leery is I can tell you that the university has built a lot of new modern townhomes and apartment complexes which are being rented out for similar prices as the older homes which I contribute to the main reason so many of these older homes are for sale because many of them have been sitting vacant for a while.  Many of the homes that I was in when I was a student in 2009 are now sitting vacant.  The University experienced a lot of growth from 2009-2014 but recently due to state funding cutbacks there has been a decline in admissions for many of the PA state Universities. I believe Ship hasn't been hit as hard as some of the Universities but I can tell you the growth has certainly slowed down.  

As someone that is very familiar with the area and has an 'in' with some of the students, I'm still leery on jumping on these opportunities.  Perhaps I will regret this decision for not acting sooner and jumping on this opportunity, but for now I have been focusing on the Harrisburg area where there are at least more opportunities for jobs.