All Forum Posts by: Daniel C.

Hi @Natalie Schanne, thanks for the reply :) I am set on a MFH house hack for this initial investment.

I'm okay without modern floor plans etc. and actually prefer to not have that so I have the opportunity to do the value-add work myself.

Thanks for the note re: NJ/NYC. I would be commuting to NYC 1-2 times/week and definitely agree that I need to find a balance b/t time commuting / $ saved. With that said and for other non-financial reasons, moving to NJ is out of the question.

Hello,

I'm currently renting in Center City and want to start my Real Estate Investing journey soon (3-6mo) by house hacking a 2-4 unit property. My budget is $300k.

 Lower Bucks County has piqued my interest due to it's proximity to Trenton (easy train to NYC for work) and I can't wait to stop paying this Phila wage tax (lol). So far, Morrisville and Bristol look most promising judging by the previous year's MFH sales.

I'm still very new to PA and would like to hear other people's thoughts on Lower Bucks County and REI experiences in the area. Any local gotchas / pitfalls that I could be overlooking? Thoughts on which areas tend to be B-grade vs C-grade?

I plan on taking a day to gain experience with the area but would appreciate any of your thoughts too. Thanks for reading :)

Thanks for the replies!

I don't see the greatest utility in just "googling it". In my eyes, if an area is popular enough that it is getting multiple articles written about it then I can't help but get the feeling that "that ship has sailed" when it comes to investing in an up and coming area. I want to find the _next_ up and coming area. To do so, I need to figure out what kind of metrics I should care about, what kind of amenities are planning to be added, what are the jobs / education trends etc.

I appreciate that map and insight, Ryan. I've started to come to that conclusion that hey these "up and coming" neighborhoods are going to overflow some day so might as well the one next door but nice to read that from someone else too.

Thanks for the welcome everyone.

I've looked at a few investment properties across Philadelphia and can agree that it's definitely a "block-by-block" neighborhood and will require more effort than just "driving through a neighborhood and saying oh this looks nice, oh this looks bad" on my end to become an effective investor.

I have a decent basic grasp of analyzing properties regarding cash flow, cap rate, and those metrics but I'm at a total loss when it comes to analyzing the location. It is a bit overwhelming with the number of neighborhoods in Philadelphia that I don't even know where to start. To me, it feels like I'm just looking for properties that cash flow and
meet my return requirements but I don't know how to judge a property's location / what is even worthtaking note of about a property's location.

What are your tips for conducting market research when it comes to location? Does anyone have any books, processes, or frameworks that they recommend?

Hello all!

I'm Daniel. I'm an engineer based in Philadelphia and am new to real estate investing. I just moved to Philly from Salt Lake City this month and am looking to purchase my first real estate investment property. I am also currently taking the PA real estate course and have already learned a ton.

In Salt Lake City, I purchased my first home (primary residence) in 2017 for 291k. It was a split-level home built in 1978 that had great bones (I was the 2nd owner!) but cosmetically, was stuck in the 90s. My wonderful wife and I put a year's worth of weekends and late nights into installing new flooring, light fixtures, landscaping, and paint. We sold the property for 367k this year and could not be happier.

This experience was all before I started learning about real estate investing. I analyzed the deal last night out of curiosity and my rough number's crunching puts this at a 17% annual ROI (counting 1.5% down payment, holding, rehab, and closing costs). It doesn't seem much higher than what the ROI would've been if we didn't do any of the rehab but I'm glad we did since now we both have experience in the costs and labor that go into these light upgrades.

Now in Philadelphia, I have 50k that I'm looking to invest in real estate. I initially was set on trying to purchase a MF property for <200K and going for a "buy and hold" strategy where I would just do the minimum work to make the units rentable and let the cash flow "flow" in. I was looking at North Philadelphia (Olney). Now, I'm getting more intrigued by BRRRR and am also considering finding a SF property for ~100k and putting in another 10-15k for rehab. I've been looking at East Mt Airy and Brewerytown for these properties thus far. You could say I still have a ton of market research to do in front of me :)

Anyways, thanks for reading and I can't wait to interact with all of you on this forum.