All Forum Posts by: Brian Adzadi

@Morgan Blue

I think the best option for you right now is to find a mentor. A flipper/rehabber in the Baltimore area who you could trade a little bit of free labor in order for he/she to teach you a few things. Knowledge and experience is the name of the game here.

You can either look for one here on BP or talk to the developer that is flipping a house in your neighborhood.

@Nica Ferrante

1. YES, because one of them could have a stellar record and the other could have a horrendous record. You rent to them and 1 or 2 years later they break up. The one with the stellar record leaves and the one with horrendous record stays. He/she start to bring derelict friends and partners to the house and start to trash your place. Imagine the resentment you will if you never collected the partner with horrendous record's information to tell you not to rent to them.

2. Take application fee upfront. This weeds out the serious renters from the BSers. A serious tenant with a stellar record is more willing to lose a couple of dollars than one with a terrible record who know they have a high likelihood of not being eligible.

3. If you use mysmartmove.com by Transunion, all of those information is made available to you except the references.

@Sean Larsen

Wow, very good question. I have thought about that myself. I still think its still a good time to invest in those areas because the housing stock is so large.

I feel, the game is not over in those areas until the big time developers from NYC, San Francisco and Miami start to settle there.

@Eric Boakye

If this was going to be a rental property, I would have told you to RUN far away as possible because the amount of money you would be spending for flood insurance would eat into your cash flow. However, you said this was going to be a flip so it doesn't really matter because some other hapless sap would be taking on that issue.

I would say then it depends how savvy your potential buyers are. Unfortunately when you finally do sell the property after the renovation, you will have to make the buyers aware that it is in a flood zone. Those words tend to turn buyers away. Unless the property is in a high demand vacation area or in the best school district, your pool of buyers may narrow tremendously.

For me, if the property doesn't have at least one of the two criteria helping its value, then I don't its worth it. You want to attract as much buyers as possible, not turn them away.

@Nandy B.

Some of my fellow BP members may disagree with what I have to say but I feel since you only have 1 rental property, you don't need a property manager. Shocker, I know.

Yes I know you have a demanding full time job and are in grad school, but to me, you should start looking into a PM when you reach 5 or more units.

Technology has made being a landlord so much easier. You can collect rent through Cash app or Venmo. You can either use your own go to plumber and electrician to be making repairs on the rental or find someone on the yellow pages. At the end of the day, YOU will not have to be the doing those repairs.

As long as the major parts of the rental are in good shape: foundation, roof, HVAC, and plumbing, you should have a peace of mind.

And yes, you should definitely have a CPA.

@Evan Parker

As someone who has experienced gentrification first hand, you would think I would not be in support of gentrification and all its "problem" it brings. However, I am the complete opposite. I am in complete favor of gentrification.

I lived in the neighborhood of Flatbush Brooklyn, NYC from 1993-2012. So I have seen this neighborhood at its low point to what it is today. In its low point, violence, theft and property damage was a regular day to day activity. Schools were not well funded and littering was rampant.  

In the apartment I was living in, there was a few section 8 tenants living there who would invite unsavory characters to hang out in the stairs, smoking, drinking and. The local Chinese restaurant refused to make deliveries to the apartments because the delivery men would get robbed. There was more bodegas selling cigarettes, lottery tickets and high fructose corn syrup juices than supermarkets with fresh fruits and vegetables.

Fast forward to today. The streets are cleaner than its ever been. Property values have gone up. The local elementary school is one of the most in demand public schools in Brooklyn. Crime rate has gone down. There are local restaurants serving gourmet foods and supermarkets selling healthy foods. The Chinese restaurants delivers to my apartments now, LOL.

How did this happen? What changed? Gentrification. Developers came and started to buyout tired mom and pop landlords and homeowners. They either broke down houses and built condos68 or revamped certain apartments. This attracted young upstarts who could not afford Manhattan level rents and middle class families. This created a ripple effect into other areas, better stores, better schools, cleaner and well kept streets.

I had spoken to some of the original residents about the change and of course some do not like it and one of the biggest complaints they had was that the new residents are not as friendly and the neighborhood is starting to have less of a family feel. I understand where they are coming from, however, I feel that is just how the younger generation of people are, Facebook and Instagram friendly and popular but real world lonely. That's just how it is. For me I would take a safer street, lower crime, and better schools than a less friendly neighborhood.

Gentrification incites growth and I will always support growth over stagnation any day.  

@Account Closed

Once you start looking into the Midwest states, those figures are more than possible, its pretty much guaranteed. Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, etc. You absolutely need to do your due diligence, but those price houses are out there in those states.

@Account Closed

That's funny how you said you want to retain the property and not just fix and flip it, because fix and flip was screaming in my head while reading your post.

However, after reading your post more thoroughly. I agree with you. If you guys can find 2 single families for 25K each and put in about 10K worth of work on each house. Rent out the house and the ARV is now 40K each. You then do a cash out refinance to take out 80K total from both houses. Rinse and repeat. You guys can come out ahead pretty quickly.

Just do your due diligence on whatever area you guys want to invest in.

@Gershom Lewis

I think you have answered your own question. MOVE TO ATLANTA and INVEST. If you were saying you plan on moving to Atlanta within the next 5 years, then yeah, I would have supported investing in NYC in the meantime (not really, NYC is just too damn expensive in my opinion). However, you are saying you plan on moving to Atl by the end of this year or next year. That is just too close of a time period.

Why not hold on to your money, keep working here in NYC and keep building capital.  Travel on and off to Atl for research purpose and familiarize yourself with the market. When you finally do move to Atl, you know where to invest and by that time you would have enough money to invest in Multi-units bigger than the hovel you get here in NYC.

I really don't think its worth investing in NYC and then move to Atl shortly after. Besides, I have heard too many horror stories of tenants living for free at the landlord's dime due to the Ultra Tenant Friendly Laws NYC have.

Make it easier on yourself and move to Atl and invest there.  

@Gershom Lewis

You will have to give us more information for us to determine if you have a good chance to play in the NYC real estate market. How much money do you have for down payment and closing cost? What is your credit score? Do you plan on house hacking? Will there be other investors involved in this or just you?

With these questions answered we could deduce whether its better start talking to a broker in NYC or to one in Atlanta. I would hate to have you get your credit pulled twice.

Another question, if instead you decide to invest in Atlanta rather, do you plan on moving there as well or just investing there? If you are just investing there, will you get a property manager or do you have family to keep up the property for you?