All Forum Posts by: Charlie Cooper

The wood paneling is not hard at all to remove usually. Depends on what is behind it though for your costs. Usually, that was put up over lathe/plaster, which often gets uneven, and if you're going to put up new drywall. you'll want to remove the lathe/plaster too which can be labor-intensive.

 Agreed wholeheartedly. I have talked to the original poster before too, and it is just a tough market sometimes to get your offer accepted, not for lack of looking at properties that made sense.  Put in enough offers at numbers that make sense for you and you'll eventually get one. As others have mentioned, off-market may be the best way to go, so it might just be targeting an area and type of property you are looking for and start a text/mail campaign. 

@Tom McGrew I'd also be interested in the FB groups and possibly the REI meeting if my schedule allows. Feel free to PM me if you don't want to share them in the open forum.

Thanks!

Are there areas you are not open to? Where have you put in offers? Are you using FHA as part of your offer? If so, that does come off as less competitive due to the contingencies and inspections.

I would also make sure if you are not already, get connected with some of the agents on this site as they may be able to help you find what you're looking for, and offer insight to make your offers a bit stronger if needed.

The greater scranton market is fairly stable now in terms of value. It's not really going to appreciate without something drastic drawing folks to the area, but the plus side is, the values have been pretty steady and can be great for pure cashflow. Plenty of deals to be had via the MLS, even more so if you are going to self-manage. As others have said, it all depends on what your goals are.

I agree with @Ryan Chatman. There are plenty of Multi's up in the scranton/wilkesbarre area. They are just not known for appreciation. There are not as many multi's in the Poconos, but there is a definite need up there for more SFH rentals that are not airbnb/STR types. There are of course a lot of multi's in the Lehigh Valley, just not as many for sale at reasonable pricing on market. All depends on your buying criteria tho.

where specifically are you trying to figure out? I would check places like hotpad and facebook marketplace to see what people are trying to charge right now. Reach out to property managers in the area as well and see if any of them will tell you.

I would use the older data as the basis for running your numbers, and when you go to rent out a place because of the low inventory of rentals you may get higher, but don't count on it. That's just sort of how I have been looking at things right now.

@Frank Mancuso To scale you want to buy with the loans. I won't touch SFHs or small multi's with less than $300/door average just because I have partners for most of my deals. My ultimate goal on deals is to be able to have no cash in them in the end because of the BRRRR strategy. If I do have cash in, I am usually only looking at deals with 25%+ COC returns, and that includes pulling out money for capex/repairs/vacancy and calculating for property management (even though I self manage right now). feel free to message me for a more in-depth discussion or if you have some properties you'd like to look at #s on.

@Emma Fitzgibbon makes a great point about the age of many of the homes being a factor. Though some of them can be a prime candidate to rehab up front, and then you need less capex set aside for the first few years. 

Great points Tom. I think the difference in Scranton area vs the Lehigh valley is there is practically 0 appreciation up there. Great cash flow opportunities everywhere even on the MLS up there though. What areas does your PM business cover?

What kind of cashflow are you looking for per door? Are you looking for a specific Cash on Cash return %?