All Forum Posts by: Jennifer S.

@Meg Schlesman

Hi Meg,

Here's an export from a spreadsheet I built. I looked at household income and home cost and did a ratio, like a P/E. Then I added in schools. I struggled to download data on schools quickly (hadn't spent huge amounts of time on it before I paused on this research due to my location challenges!). If anyone knows a good trustworthy school source that can be downloaded for free to Excel let me know.

I cross referenced the top scorers on zillow/greatschools (can't seem to download the data from greatschools.org) and confirmed they were at least 8s.

As I continue to develop this sheet I'd like to check the income and home cost data (I'm sure the home cost info has problems, but this is just a first start). I downloaded the house price data in June 2017 so could be quite different now!

I also want to overlay commuting time to Boston, is there commuter rail,  info on local employers, house starts, etc.

There does seem to be a lot of high end building in some of these towns. Not sure whether it's a good sign for my project or not.

I realise some of these towns are far out but on the other hand some of the 495 ones are commutable to the 495 tech jobs. I think those exist but my knowledge is too vague, need to brush up.

Happy to stay in touch on this, send me a PM if you want. I'm new here so not sure all the protocols.

Lastly, there were some well scoring towns in Western Mass and near Worcester, in terms of having good income and reasonable housing price. I didn't dig into them because they are outside of my current focus list, but perhaps I will come back to them.

Normally I keep meticulous records of where I got my data from but I think I saved over the page that showed the source for household income and home cost. However these are kind of common stats that I know I can find again and the figures all looked reasonable. And again these were just a rough starting point.

If you are wondering where are certain towns with great school systems (e.g. Lexington, Wellesley), their House price / income ratio was too high for my filter. I think those towns are in a league of their own, with high finance cash buyers and biotech billionaires, etc. Out of my league for now, but maybe someday!

The data I'd really like but haven't compiled yet is the house price flip premium. I was just trying to proxy for good starting points.

Hi all,

For the past few weeks I've been researching cash flow properties near Boston and Providence (with the logic that I can't always be on site to do an extended flip or new build). 

Prior to that though I had been researching suburbs of Boston with good school systems, strong median income but somewhat (for Boston) affordable prices. Was thinking these might be good candidates for flips, whether intense ones or more modest cosmetic focused projects. The price increases in the city lately seem faster than in some suburbs. I think at a certain point young families will look at school systems in places like Sharon, Boxborough, Holliston and switch back into that way of living. 

I know there is so much press about the Millennials seeking city living, and I myself grew up in the city very happily and continue to live that way, but I think there may be a mispricing arising. Should the price per square foot be so much cheaper in these places than in the city? 

Does anyone agree? Are there profits in flips in these leafy towns with high rated school systems? If you agree I'd be interested in hearing how I might be able to partner up on flips.

I have learned from the bigger pockets podcasts: find partners if you need a piece of the puzzle. I understand we'd need a long period of getting to know each other and building trust, plus strong partnership agreements. But want to see if the idea has any legs in the first place.

Many thanks!

Jennifer

@Jamie Ryan, apologies, I just figured out how to do this tag thing. I'm not sure if you'll see my prior post.

Hi Charlie (@Charlie MacPherson),

I'm new to bigger pockets and up way too late (my time zone) and can't figure out how to work the @ piece. Hope you might see this. I've got a little bit of knowledge about Brockton, Fall River and New Bedford and might consider them. I think they seem like good cash flow oriented markets but I'm a bit skeptical about appreciation.  I quite like the history part about New Bedford (cobblestone streets, old whaling houses), but there do seem to be some rough patches.

Re Taunton, what kind of people are renting there? Are they commuting to Boston, working locally? Are those people wanting to stay convenient for both Boston and Providence?

Many thanks!

Jennifer

Hi Jamie @Jamie Ryan, 

Many thanks for your replies. Do you mean to go to 1010 Mass Ave to ask about properties one is just considering to buy? Or already own? I am looking for a project in Boston but it's not scalable to ask zoning about many potential projects.

Boston desperately needs more housing units so one would think they might be open to densifying ( especially in the slightly less dense areas like Roslindale, Hyde Park etc) but I imagine alot of No's from any zoning process. I am close to ruling out new investment in Boston because of the prices but want to make sure I'm not closing the door on some creative (but legal) ways of creating new housing. Thanks again! Jennifer

ps forgot to mention, I know a friend in London who got a mortgage from a big US bank for a US property based on a GBP, London-based income. Happy to discuss, message me for more info

Hi Gideon,

If you wish to minimise your FX risk while you look for properties one option is a bank that offers foreign currency accounts. There are banks here in London that offer USD accounts if you already have a GBP account. It tends to be the large multi national banks.

Some folks here in London like Transfer Wise to send money more cheaply than banks. I don't know if it's a safe method.

I'm not sure if there's any problem to wire funds from an Israeli bank in Shekels to a US bank in USD. I think that should be ok if the parties involved are used to foreign transactions. 

If you are able to open a US based bank account, that is likely to make things easier. Is that an option? 

Also, there seem to be a lot of UK people buying in the US (mainly Florida). There is a whole ecosystem of service providers who facilitate this. I think some of these people actually get mortgages on the ground in the US. I think they just have to put more down. So this might be useful info to your situation.

Best of luck

Jennifer