The Land Of Opportunity Zones | Turn $200k into $120k NET PROFIT

[Ronald Starusnak]

The Syracuse Opportunity Zone Is An Investor’s Dream

Hey guys, remember how I said everyone should be investing in Syracuse, NY right now? That post was geared mostly towards the excellent performance of rental properties especially when using a good team and taking advantage of section 8 but I have another reason here. Opportunity zones allow investors to defer their federal taxes on ANY CAPITAL GAINS until December 31st, 2026, reduce your tax payment by up to 15% when it’s due and pay as little as zero taxes on potential profits on the properties that you purchase in these zones if you hold the property for 10 years.

What does this opportunity zone / opportunity fund have to do with Syracuse? Well, just about the entire city of Syracuse has been designated as an opportunity zone! Let’s do some math here, let’s say you bring in $100,000 to invest into an opportunity zone, with these potential savings you could be looking at $70,000 in potential additional returns over 10 years. If you want to know more about how to use an opportunity zone / opportunity fund you should consult your tax accountant or tax attorney because with all of the benefits come a lot of requirements and I don’t want to try to explain them in this post and end up confusing both of us.

Okay, so what? Syracuse is an opportunity zone but there is an opportunity zone in Rochester, and Buffalo, or another random state that I know nothing about; why would you invest in Syracuse and not one of the other areas that are eligible? There are a lot of things happening in Syracuse right now that when utilized together can make Syracuse an amazing area to invest in, grab a massive chunk of properties, and acquire higher cash returns than any other area.

1. THE SYRACUSE LANDBANK: The Syracuse Landbank is a group that was formed to bring Syracuse back to it’s former glory by forcefully taking vacant, abandoned, underutilized, and tax delinquent properties, and putting them back up for sale. There are contingencies to the purchases from the Syracuse Landbank; they typically have very low selling prices (I’m looking at the website right now and see a duplex for $3,500) but they require repairs. The Landbank provides you with a list of repairs they want done to the property and require an estimate and contract with a contractor before closing and they will make sure you are working in best faith to perform the upgrades and repairs. Even with extensive repairs this can be quite lucrative.
2. CHEAP PROPERTIES: Look at it this way, you have $200,000 to invest so you come to Syracuse and you find 10 properties where you will need to invest $100k all inclusive between the purchase & remodel. Your 200k will be the 20% down for 10 properties and if these properties are duplexes that you rent out as section 8, in Syracuse the rental rates are about $1,000 for a 3 bedroom! Rough numbers here of course but that means if you purchased duplexes your profit each month will be around $1,000 after expenses. You’ve now turned your $200k investment into a potential $120,000/year net. Don’t get too crazy here though, volume of properties may be limited, might not be able to find duplexes, remodel costs, holding costs, and difficulty finding funding can alter these numbers. These are ROUGH numbers just to give you a baseline but if you’re reading this then you know how to run your own.

PROBLEMS YOU MIGHT RUN INTO

This is all fine and dandy but there are problems you can run into and here are some of the ones I would anticipate if you were to come in guns blazing.

1. Lack of Volume: The Landbank is not the only entity with properties, there are a lot of wholesalers like HS Property Funds who have great deals, HUD Homestore lists deals, Fannie Mae Homepath, Freddie Mac Homesteps, you can reach out to other investors etc, many of you will already know how to drum up deals and invest via whichever marketing method or group of marketing methods you like to employ.
2. Lack of Contractors: You have to have a good contractor, even the biggest contractors can only do so much and you need one that understands what it is like to work with the Syracuse code office, understands the market, is efficient, and can get the property within the standards of the Landbank.
3. Bad Property Management: A good property management company can make or break your investment portfolio. You absolutely need a good team, an agent or broker, a contractor, and a manager. With our clients we are totally inclusive, we have an excellent attorney, a real estate broker, agents, contractors, and in house maintenance. This isn’t a self plug I promise, just make sure you have a great team built if you’re not able to be here in person. This may be the most important thing to pay attention to. A bad manager can kill any potential in a property.
4. Difficulty Finding Loans: Syracuse has cheap properties but most commercial lenders won’t lend under $75,000! That means you might be forced to invest more into a property than it needs. Some local lenders may loan less if you’re doing volume, same with online lenders, you just have to shop around. Try to find smaller private lenders; they have guidelines but aren’t as tied to those guidelines as a larger firm. I like LoanFund1.
5. Property Taxes In NY: New York has high taxes, some properties you will be paying more for taxes than you will for your mortgage.

IN CONCLUSION OF MY RAMBLING

Make sure you do your own due diligence, run your own numbers, put together a team, check out the properties that are selling, research the rental rates, explore repair & remodel costs, check tax rates, check all holding & closing costs, make sure this investment strategy will work for you. If you have any specific questions of would like me to link you up with some individuals in this market please feel free to reach out to me.