All Forum Posts by: Allison Keane Barr

Anyone have banks they would recommend for a 2-family investment property mortgage in Watertown, NY? Willing to work either with a local bank or a national one.

I just had an offer accepted there and I'm trying to figure out the best banks to check out for competitive mortgage terms. The bank I had previously gotten a pre-approval from let me know that the rate and down payment requirement would be higher for a multifamily than a single family investment property (which makes sense, I just hadn't realized as this will be my first property purchase), so I want to compare some quotes and see if I can do better than what they're offering.

My husband and I are looking at buying our first investment property in Troy, NY - one of the flat-roofed, two-family homes that are so common there - and we want to understand what the needs and costs would be for snow removal from a flat roof. Anyone have experience with this? How often do you have to clear the snow? Do you typically hire a contractor for the entire year at a flat rate, or per instance? What do costs look like?

We saw in one article that snow on a flat roof can actually provide some insulation for the building, but not sure about how wise that is. Maybe safe to leave the snow there for longer on a newer roof?

I am looking at a SFH in Lawrence and was surprised to find that Neighborhood Scout estimates the vacancy rate there at 14% - about the same that it gave me for Butler-Tarkington (12 - 14%). Do those numbers sound right? What vacancy rates have you experienced for Indianapolis?

Can anyone recommend neighborhoods/suburbs to aim for with better vacancy rates? I'm searching for SFHs in approximately the $70k - $120k range.

Cheers!

Hi BP!

My husband and I are new to Bigger Pockets and to real estate investing in general. We currently live in Los Angeles, and are from New England originally, but are planning to temporarily relocate to Indianapolis this April in order to kick off some real estate investment there. I have some family and friends in the area and we were inspired by the energy around the real estate market there when we visited last year.

We are interested in eventually replacing our need for full time employment with our real estate investments in order to free up more time for passion projects, travel, etc - the dream!

Right now we're considering what our best first move will be and are most interested in SFRs for BRRRR and/or RTO, but are also considering 3-4 units that we could home hack.

If anyone has recommendations for real estate agents in Indianapolis, I'd love to hear them! I haven't had too much luck looking through old forum posts on the topic so far.

Cheers!

Allison