All Forum Posts by: Jason Davis

@Cel Arrington That's awesome.  I'm glad to hear from people that are successfully investing in that area. I've been looking there because the houses are generally at a price point that I'm more comfortable with just getting started.

Thanks for the info. I'm pretty new to all of this and appreciate it. I've done some driving around to try and figure out how to classify some of the neighborhoods (A, B, C, D, etc) and thought that was probably the case.

@Cody McCraw I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on buying in NW and SE Roanoke for rental income.

I think they are generally considered higher risk for crime, but I'm never sure how bad it really is. When I look at the crime overlay on trulia, it show sections where crime is bad but then other spots where it looks to be almost zero.

I'm a little more familiar with SE because I have friends that live there, but I would appreciate the input/opinion of someone who has more experience buying/selling there.

Thanks,

Jason

New guy here...my biggest fear is the fear of "what if."  What if I buy the wrong place? What if I pay too much? What if I can't find financing? What if a big expense hits early on? Etc...

@Russell Holmes The block by block thing is always weird to me, but can make such a big difference. There is an area just outside of downtown here that is like that. Oddly, in one small section, most of the houses on one side of the street have been remodeled and are very nice but the houses on the other side have not. Or another street where one end of the street has remodeled but the other end of the block hasn't.  Really hammers home knowing the area.

@Nakia Addison Thanks so much. I appreciate the info. The market analysis is an interesting and tricky part, especially for someone just figuring it out.

@Russell Holmes I appreciate the detailed response. It's good to know that I was *generally* on the right track as far as classifying properties. I've looked at a few "D" class properties and, like you said, they look good on paper from a cash flow standpoint, but don't offer any appreciation to speak of. And others on the forum have been helpful to point out that many of those have deferred maintenance and high potential CAPEX costs

Thanks again to both of you. I appreciate you taking the time to help me out.

I see a lot of references to different classes of properties and was curious if there was some objective measure to make this determination or if it's more subjective 

@Derek Levi I agree with both Bill and Corey. I bought a house last year and got a warranty with it. About 4 months into the new house, the heat pump went out (not totally unexpected...the inspector said it was "working fine but beyond it's expected life span"). We called the warranty company and they didn't have anyone in the area (RED FLAG!) but would look or we could find someone. Basically, they were never able to find anyone to even come look at it for whatever peanuts they were willing to pay and then they gave us the run around on reimbursing us for any of the work that was done.  We would have been better off had we actually just set the money on fire.

@Taylor L.  I never looked at apartments, but the houses I looked at were all pretty old (80+ years old) and I had some worries about deferred maintenance too.  Thanks very much for the response. I appreciate the info.

Just curious about anyone that own's property in and around Danville and how it's working out. I've done a little bit of research and it looks like most of the places are pretty inexpensive, but I'm familiar enough with the area to know that the population is lower now than it was 20 years ago, which would seem to be a negative.  I've looked at a few places on zillow/realtor etc. and they are all generally 3/2 and 1200ish square feet and are listed between 10-20k. Most note that they are section 8 rentals at right around 400/month.  Based on that, the initial numbers seem to make sense, but I'd love to hear from someone that has actually invested there.