All Forum Posts by: John DeRosa

 I having trouble even bunting getting on base.  Maybe I am looking in the wrong place or speaking to the wrong people but I have searched every night for months.  Any advice on how or where to find a deal would be appreciated.  I live in NJ and started to look out of state as NJ is becoming untouchable.

Thanks.

I'm new to real estate investing. I have been looking at several locations and am having a real hard time finding deals. I mostly look at the MLS and realtor or zillow.com. I talk to as many agents as I can; however, am having no luck. Has anyone used a cold calling service to find deals? If so, what has been your experience and do you have an recommendations?

Thank you everyone for your input.  This has been very helpful.

John

I understand not every deal will be a good one.  I started to fudge the numbers to try to make a couple work but I thought better of it.  Who are buying these deals that are not producing returns better than 1% - 2%?  I had to discount some 25% -35% just for the numbers to work.

I am looking in Hudson County, Union County and Middlesex County, NJ.  Within my expenses I included: taxes, insurance, management, repairs & Maintenance, utilities, reserves and a small amount for administrative (legal & accounting).  I usually don't include capex unless I see damage and I know repairs or a reno will be needed right away.  Where do I find properties selling at substantial discounts?  What are the most effective ways to finding deals?

Thanks.

Hello

I am new to real estate investing and looking for my first small multi-family property (3-7 units) in NJ. I believe I have the COC calculation correct; however, the deals I am analyzing are not even close to the COC suggestion of 10%+. I am annualizing the rents for the property, deducting vacancy and expenses and calculating a Net Operating Income. I am then subtracting my mortgage (principal + interest) payment from my NOI to get my below the line NOI or cashflow. Finally, I divide that number by the amount I have invested (down payment + closing costs + any upfront repairs, etc.) to calculate the COC. Is that correct?

If that is correct, am I looking for deals in the wrong place? I am calculating COC returns of 1% or 2% at best.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.