Investor · Fairfax, VA · Member since 2015 · 239 posts · 90 votes
I've found a number of deals that appear to cash flow very well in Southern Maryland- nice buy and hold properties that clear the 1% guideline easily and won't take too much cash to turn. I'm considering picking up a few for my personal portfolio or I will offer them to some investors that are my clients.
Can anyone here share what vacancy and demand they've experienced in these markets for single family homes recently? In particular, I'm looking at deals in St. Mary's County and southern Calvert County. I need a better handle on vacancy rates, and delinquency/ collection loss experience. My current small portfolio is in Northern Virginia and they do well there with vacancy (less than 2%), but the prices make it harder to cash flow as strongly.
Also, if anyone here is doing Section 8 in these markets, that would be really helpful to know about as well- I'm curious to see how well those are doing. These areas/ houses strike me as ideal for affordable housing, if the market is tight in that price bracket.
Liz
I have been looking in st Mary's county as well and when I visited many of the homes they are in really rough shape and/or in D areas. I am still looking in that area but have been told by another investor when I was down there that rents are down and they are a lot of rentals on the market right now that have been on for a while. This isn't to say there are not any deals out there and I am curios to see opinions of others.
Liz
I have been looking in st Mary's county as well and when I visited many of the homes they are in really rough shape and/or in D areas. I am still looking in that area but have been told by another investor when I was down there that rents are down and they are a lot of rentals on the market right now that have been on for a while. This isn't to say there are not any deals out there and I am curios to see opinions of others.
I have two clients who have rental properties down there. Both are accidental landlords. Both have conveyed to me tenant quality issues, delinquencies, evictions, long vacancies.
Russell- what type of units are these? I usually prefer rentals that are close to bottom, but not at the bottom of the market- better tenants but still very affordable. The top end seems a bit stressed, but I can't tell about the floor.
I'm originally from St. Mary's so I'm comfortable with the areas and lay of the land... but I keep hearing conflicting reports about the rental market. A few investors I've talked to said it is a great market. One guy has 20+ units across southern MD and almost all are Section 8. They do well. Craigslist seems to show multifamily ads mostly and a number of them are offering concessions and advertising one month free.
Southern Maryland does seem very popular with the DC burb folks, because you can find some numbers down there that are still pretty nice. I wasn't going to reply, but I saw you're from Herndon. My aunt and uncle have been there my entire life, so I have been there 1-2 times a year since.
Thanks @Trevor Ewen. Funny enough, I'm actually from St. Mary's (1987-2004) but don't own any property there. It seems that every has mixed reports on how it is now.