All Forum Posts by: Shawn Mcenteer

@Raju Penmatcha plenty of those.  A matter of fact that was a huge metric for my me and my wife because we were implementing a house hacking strategy moving property to property with 4 kids.   Having good schools played huge part in the properties we purchased.  

Hi @Raju Penmatcha plenty of people are invest in SFR. The question I will ask is would rather step or a dollar to pick a dime or just pick up the dollar? SFR are very tough, they have potential for certain niches like college rentals or rent by the room strategy. You can make SFR work but extremely tough in traditional sense. MFR have a much higher success rate in New Jersey. Collecting 2-4 rents for 1 property tends to offset taxes more favorably. Long story short, numbers are much more favorable with MFR.

Hi @Christopher Morris I'll let you know my wife and I got to Fi via house hacking in New Jersey. Plain and simple the reason we were able to acquire the properties we have over the years is because we leverage low money down loans. We have never purchased a home for more than 10% down. Most of the homes we have purchased are 5% down. The way I see it is most homes will cost you 25% down and renovations out of state will be difficult or very expensive so the ability to force appreciation becomes tough. Most out of states deals end up looking like an IRA, decent returns, safe but meant for very long term to get anywhere. BRRR house hacking using 5% down loan and applying down payment to renovations forcing appreciation is tough to beat and allows you to move quickly in NJ.

The concern with out of state investing is your money goes to down payment and property management. Doing a BRRR strategy in the house you is not difficult, especially when connecting with local investors already doing it. The good news about BRRR is it will fast track your investing goals. The reason I know this is because my first duplex was a complete gut, I had no clue what I was doing I just believed in the end result and trusted the people I was connected with locally. in a few short years 1 property has produced over a $1/2 million in equity, thousands in cash flow, was leverage to buy another property which does the same and leverage to buy a small cash flowing business.

The way I see it is 25% down out of state means $100k in down payment/closing cost to obtain turnkey property that gains equity similar to an IRA or 5% down managing a renovation in the property your living in which in turn pays yourself from the equity gains which allows you to get to multiple house hacks very fast.

I have dozens of clients doing this in New Jersey most of which come from no construction background, they simply use preferred vendors we have in place (not GC's) which lowers renovations cost because there is no middle man. 

Year over year rent increases, icing on the cake. Seeing a $100-300 increase on a single unit is common in NJ.  

30 day or greater stay is not the issue with Irvington. The issue is legally be allowed to raise rents and getting around what the city believes is fair market rents. Irvington is very similar to newark, which has very strict laws with regard to rent increases. 

Hi @Orane Jacobs MTR has potential almost anywhere in NJ and it has potential to get around the extreme laws of Irvington because of under 1 year occupancy. But please keep in mind Irvington is a city that has extremely wacky laws for landlords, thing like rent increases can be extremely difficult. There are other towns with much less city intervention and will have much higher chances of collecting higher rents. 

Quote from @Max Bellile:

Quote from @Savannah Holzer:

Hey Max! Which investing strategies are you thinking of pursuing? Are you thinking about investing in New Jersey also?

 I am thinking about NJ... House hack is currently on my mind, possible fixup... Does Easy Street fund horizontal development? It's a thought of mine as well, basically following my mentors model. 

House Hacking is great way to go.  Such an unfair advantage for New Jersey.   Incorporating a value add strategy to your house hack has the potential to move you quickly from one property to the next.   

Hi @Suresh Ram I do most of my business in central- North Jersey.  

1. connect with someone who specializes in multi family investing.  The deals I bring from clients are combination of off market and on market but most of the deal I bring happen becuase I am well know in the multi family community.  Find local specialist in your area is huge.

2. close to public transportation. Train is huge! 

3.zillow is used for browsing but notorious for being inaccurate with multifamily 

4. tough to say without know more. yes the work, is it smart move not sure. Ive done it myself leveraging 401k and HELOC

5.Yes lots! not sure where to start :)

6.BP calculator works great, just need to tweak a few things when using is

7. BP calculator does it, its an estimate but works

8.  depends on property but most of the time yes

Running the numbers can be deceiving at first. I would love to see the numbers, normally they can be tweaked in a more positive way.  Biggest thing IMO is getting close to the train station and have a high quality units that may not look attractive on paper the first few years but will have the ability to raise rents consistently long term.  Break even today, cash cow in a few years type of an approach.  

Hi @Bliss Hu I started with $100k House Hacking.  It has easily 10x and produces cash flow.  When started out in New Jersey, numbers never look to impressive.  Through rent increases, forces appreciation with $300k you sure can produce cash cow properties.   The best part is you can do it with very little money down using owner occupied loans.  The most I have ever used to buy a property is 10% down.  I've purchased 3 properties with 5% down.  For this reason to me investing out of state becomes tough knowing you must for 25% down every time you buy.