All Forum Posts by: Alfred Harrison

Yikes! I was on the cusp of signing up with them. But, I have read too many crazy complaint forum threads about them, including this thread. 

@Justin Seng I don't think that you would have much of a problem getting rentals in the areas that I mentioned such as West Chester, Downingtown, Coatesville and along the main line. Of course though, do your own due diligence and continue to talk to people that are actually investing in those areas, etc.

@Justin Seng Welcome Justin. There are definitely rental opportunities in Chester county just as there are in Delaware county. Downingtown and Coatesville immediately come to mind. West Chester as well, but WC is very pricey. Believe it or not, there are rental opportunities around Frazer, Malvern, Paoli, Berwyn, etc. (essentially the towns along the main line from around Exton out to Villanova).

I imagine that up around Pottstown, you can find some rental areas, but I have don't have specific knowledge of that area.

Also, I hear that Phoenixville is super hot right now. It was still 'up and coming' just a few years ago. Manayunk prices are pretty crazy, I believe. Traffic and parking can be a nightmare as well as general driving conditions in the winter due to the narrow streets and hills.

@John KniselyYikes! Exactly.

@Ian AndrewsI receive updates on properties within a specific search criteria through agents that set me up on the TrendMLS portal. So, I can see basically what I can expect to pay in property taxes on a real basis for a given property.

You can also go to the county website and look it up borough by borough. Just make sure when you're doing your estimate on a property, that you multiply the mill rate by the property's assessed value (i.e. not the asking price on zillow or some site like that). As an example, for Lansdowne, the mill rate is 63.253. So, a property assessed at say, $80,000 (again, disregard asking price or prior sales figures as those are not particularly important for this calculation) would have an annual tax bill of $5,566.26. You can usually get the assessed value on the home's listing. Steep indeed.

You also want to be careful about assessed values. Most of the time, the county will only re-assess once every few decades. So, you can generally expect that the assessed value will not change year to year. BUT, if you are unlucky and the county decides to re-assess, the value could change dramatically, which would have a significant impact on your property taxes.

@Richard Jahnle Yes, property taxes in DelCo are pretty outrageous in general, especially when compared to Philly. I also tend to agree that in general, the combination of city wage tax and property taxes are outweighed by property taxes in DelCo. I haven't heard really negative things about Drexel Hill's schools though. Additionally, Springfield and Media seem to have pretty good schools, but the higher home values combined with the property taxes makes it tough. I hear a lot of complaining about Lansdowne's H.S. (William Penn H.S.) and Upper Darby's H.S., but the elementary school in Lansdowne seems to be okay.

@Vincent Pace Thanks for chiming in! When you write, 'junk fees,' are you talking about fees tacked on that don't really have anything to do with the loan? I too roll around ideas of working with a private lender in the near future. What are some of the fees that you would consider to be junk?

@Will Barnard Your insights are very helpful!

@Mark Marinaccio Any update?

I'm excited to attend this event. I recently became of aware of the DeRosa Group through Matt's super informative videos on various real estate related topics. If this event is anything like Matt's videos in terms of the quality, then the event will be a home-run.