All Forum Posts by: Shawn Mcenteer

Hi @Annabella Molina-Skrobe it depends on the individual and what type of investment property it is. West New York is good location for rules and regulations,  I would be very careful regarding the neighboring towns.  Laws can make land lording very tough.  Are you thinking of owner occupying?  

Hi @Steve Bob I am located in New Jersey.  The issue I have with Biggerpockets is to often everyone jumps in offering a diagnoses without understanding enough about a situation.  Then on top of it everyone jumps in to tell a story about how investing in their out of state rental market is amazing. 

Simply put regardless of the market you live in House Hacking continues to be one of the smartest ways to invest safe and with minimal risk.  Its rare you see house hackers numbers in any market preform lower than OOS rental.   If you are in Brooklyn I would look at NY or NJ in close proximity to NYC, you live in one unit rent out the other reduce your monthly expenses.  What's great about this is the lending options, $50k has potential to get you $1m home if leveraging the correct loan. Anything OOS will get you $200k property for $50k

Your original question should not be answered by anyone without knowing the market you want to invest in.  Buying a property in a "rough" neighborhood" in NJ is not the same as buying one in another part of the country.  NJ is a very established state maxed out, meaning many rough neighborhoods are not just going to turn over without major redeveloping.  

Buying in more established neighborhoods tends to produce greater ROI becuase of the demand to get into these areas is high. My wife in and buy destressed properties in high demand areas and turn them into cash cow rentals via house hacking. We also leverage what I call LIFF (live in fix and flip) and purchase single family properties in these neighborhoods to live in and renovate.

Hi @Xavier Vazquez   Everyone wants the best deal, very rare anyone gets into this looking for the worst deal.  What matters most here is you current situation and what goal you are looking to achieve. Best deal for you may be horrible deal for another investor.  If you understand this is buy and hold and you have a long term vision multi family can be absolutely life changing.  If you are looking for instant cashflow/success its possible it just take major effort somewhere i.e.  Updating property, creative rental strategy, etc 

Hi @Chaim Mal I would look deeper into house hacking.  You can hit 1% rule in NJ.  You don't have to have to house hack I just recommend it becuase you can purchase properties with low money down loans which in most cases allows you to move faster.

Hi @Curt S. vacation related tends to not be as easy.  Very much town by town and community by community.   I am going through process right now on one of my properties and really the only reason I am doing it is becuase I have an extremely good relationship with town and becuase I have a clear MTR side step if needed.  Taxes are high in New Jersey but I will follow that up with so are rents.  On top of this rents go up much faster than taxes.  

Do you intend to use yourself or strictly investment?  If you want it as strict investment I would focus more on MTR catering to business professionals.  

Hi @Jennifer Katherine De Loughy please see below.  :)

-What I expect from broker:  Access to them at a minimum of 9am-9pm 7 days per week.  This is really for the sole purpose of needing answers on compliance issues that may come up

- non- negotiable:  I must be allowed by brokerage to also be a mortgage loan originator and be compensate for, I am NOT sending my business to broker owners lender when I as the agent can show up in that capacity.  With that being said majority of real estate commission must go in my pocket and there must be a clear way to allow me to work at greater than 100% commission each year with opportunity to receive re-occurring income 

-deal breaker: mandatory meetings that are frequent, majority preferred vendors i.e, lending, title, attorney, home warranty etc.  Any office hours as a requirement

-Access to broker is most important for me.  Even when I was new coaching, education, classes never impressed me becuase you can get them anywhere so I always outsourced coaching to top producer some of which were other brokerages even though my brokerage offered it to agents.

-I switched in the past becuase Brokerage put majority of fees on the agent in form of high splits and brokerage had to many rules/major push to use their in house people which was essentially an extra income stream for owners.  Also could not stand the brand element, meaning the push to get realtors to believe their business was from the brokerages brand. No one has ever worked with me becuase I was at XYZ realty, to this day many don't realize where hang my license.  At previous brokerages I was always told "if you leave so will your business"  It was always BS

I would meet with another brokerage if there was compensation structure that was substantially better than what I have now but with that being said I am I'm in a spot where I have golden hand cuffs,  I would be leaving tens of thousands of dollars of re-occurring income to make a switch. When I have conversations like this normal the math does not add up for me personally.  All this being said I want to let you know I am in unique position, although every realtor has ability to have what I have I know very few take advantage of it.  Most agents focus on buy/sell hamster wheel

Hi @Mike Smith the property is located in New Jersey?  Self managing can be very easy,  bulk of the work is screening tenants which you can hire realtor to handle and require tenant to pay realtor fee. Everything else is having well defined lease that breaks down expectation of tenant clearly.  When issues come up most agents with half a brain should have team in place to fix items/ tenant turnover.  All my clients get full access to these people as a white glove service for working with me.  Long story short self managing is worth $3k+ saved for maybe a few phone calls each year. 

Hi @Nicholas Minich Not sure if this would be a help for you or not becuase it requires a different approach compared to traditional renting but cash flow is not a problem, just normally requires creative renting strategy. 

Hi @David Fals small multi in north jersey rents fast.  I have turned over all my units in the past few years. Vacancy is under 1 week.  Most of the time it is same day. Meaning lease ends on 31st and new tenants come in on 1st. I am over a decade in with under 1% vacancy and not a single missed payment of rent with consistency rent increases of $100-$300 each year.  Living in a "Tenant Friendly" state has been a dream :)

 Hi Vaughn. Appreciation for single family and multi family ten to be similar. Both are in very high demand in North Jersey.  Very few single family and small multi family homes are being built. Finding distressed properties  A/B type neighborhood tend to work well especially with regards to rent increases year over year.  A/B type beinghoods are great but really the main focus should be landlord friendly towns vs tenant friendly towns, North Jersey fluctuated town to town.  There are towns that are wonderful and others that you should avoid. 

Rent by room works, I have done it both ways and I have plenty of clients doing single family and multi family.  SF vs MF is very important early on, I will let you know I have purchased many house hack in north jersey using low money down loans. HUGE hack.  In order to do so the type of property you buy prior plays a large part.  Purchasing single family then multi can be extremely tough but going from multi to single tends to be much easier.

With this being said, this is just small part of implementing a successful house hacking strategy but plays a massive role.