Lehigh Valley, PA/ Warren County, NJ General questions, advice

[Rigo V.]

I have a few questions I was hoping any NJ/PA investors could answer for someone getting started. 

1) anyone know a qualified property manager to oversee my potential property in warren county, phillipsburg area ? (Collection of rent, finding tenants, etc) 

2) I know NJ is very tenant friendly. Is it too tenant friendly where I should just avoid it? 

[David Ribardo]

Rigo, I recommend you look at more than just the legal aspects. If you use good tenant screening procedures you should be able to minimize the impacts of evictions. 

If you are looking at a buy and hold strategy, I recommend you look at the average rents, tax rates, vacancy rates, cost of insurance, and other things that will impact your bottom line. For example, I posted the same fictional apartment for rent on craigslist to gauge rental interest. Over 48 hours I received 14 inquiries for Bethlehem, nine for Allentown, three for Easton, but only two for Slatington- so you can't apply the same vacancy rates for all four townships. It doesn't mean there aren't successful investors in all of these townships, it just means you have to take a different approach and use different planning considerations when evaluating your deals. I also recommend going to some of the local meetups - you will learn a ton just from seeing other people's successes and failures.