All Forum Posts by: Matthew Mehring

Very good points. Thank you! That's what I was leaning towards. It's hard to walk away when everything out there is getting snapped up in a few days, but you're right - it's cheap for a reason. 

Hi everyone, I found a property that looks like it might be a decent buy, the catch though is it's in a high risk flood zone because it's on a creek. Just wondering what adjustments I should be making to my model to account for the additional risk? 

It looks like it has about a 14% chance of flooding in a given year and a 61% in a five year period per FEMA. I'm thinking I should take the deductible for the flood insurance and multiply it by the annual probability of flooding to get an expected annual cost due to flood damage. Does this method make sense and is there anything else I'm missing?

Also, would taking mitigating steps (i.e. building a retaining wall or regrading) increase the property value or just help reduce the risk to my bottom line? 

Personally, I would consider Bridgeport before Norristown. Norristown has a lot to like: walkable downtown area with cheap units and right the transportation center. But the town isn't taking any action that I'm aware of to prompt gentrification and taxes are very high for what you're getting last time I looked. The town also has a pretty bad rap in the county because it was ranked as one of the worst cities in America in terms of crime. I tried to convince my fiancé (a lifelong Montco resident) we should buy a house there to househack and she rejecting the idea flat out. It's still a fairly dangerous town, though not as bad as a few years ago. A friend of mine actually got jumped by teenagers in broad daylight on the SRT over there. 

Amerisource Bergen and the other office construction in Conshohocken might help things there, but I think professionals will want something that's a little less rough around the edges. Bridgeport is reasonably priced relative to Conshohocken, its already on the gentrification path, and it's only just across the bridge from Norristown.

I think Norristown's biggest obstacles are its reputation as a bad neighborhood and the taxes. The taxes are the harder of the two to overcome. You can definitely make something work there, but between the taxes and the fact low-income tenents are harder on your units, I suspect it will be difficult to make a decent margin for a few years. Eventually it will gentrify - just probably after Bridgeport rents are closer to Conshohocken rents and Bridgeport has gotten a bit more built up.

Conshy resident here - can confirm it's booming. If I had more buying power, I'd be looking to buy here. Three office projects coming up, two are pretty well on their way and the traffic is going to be awful once they're occupied because of the bridge bottleneck. Should be a catalyst for residential prices in and around the area. Perhaps look at Bridgeport or Norristown. Norristown should in theory be a good buy (major transit hub, easy access to major highways, etc.) but I suspect they have a lot of governmental issues that prevent it from gentrifying. I believe it's the last suburb on the Manayunk/Norristown line to gentrify. Once Bridgeport gets really pricey, I wouldn't be surprised if Norristown really starts to boom.

@Louis Zameryka

For sure! Not sure if you've run a marathon, but what I've found (and what the science tells us) is that the further you go over a marathon, the less like a marathon it becomes - mostly because the predictive value of VO2 Max breaks down and there hasn't been a good alternative developed to predict times. 

Personally, I really enjoy them because it's less about speed and more about attitude and problem-solving skills. During my 100 miler for example, I started dozing while hiking at about mile 85 so my pacer and I had to brainstorm ways to keep me from falling asleep on the side of the trail.

It's a really crazy hobby, but it's given me great stories, amazing memories, and incredible friends.

Sorry everyone! Went on vacation and totally forgot I made this post! Thank you all for the encouragement - a lot of my family and friends don't seem to get it so it means a lot! 

Short answer why I'm considering duplexes vs. larger properties is it's within my price range. I'd love to do a tri or quad eventually but I'm on a bit of a budget for now and I feel like a duplex will be a lot easier to learn on. And any cash flow coming in to offset expenses will be a huge improvement to my current situation - I'm thinking if I can cut my net housing expense in half, I should be ready to move on another property within a year. 

Hi everyone! My name is Matt, I'm in my mid-20s working in financial services outside of Philadelphia. I was actually a real estate major in college and one of my friends from school introduced me to BP. The amount of content on BP is awesome and it's been a great help in moving from the classroom to actually diving in and buying my first property! Hoping to start off sometime in the next 5-7 months by buying a duplex to start house hacking. From there, I'd like to achieve financial independence by the time I'm 35 and hopefully be able to focus on spending time with my family and growing my real estate portfolio.

On the side, I'm working towards the CFA designation, I run ultra-marathons (got my first 100-miler in a month 😬), and I'm an altar server at my church. Oh, and I'm getting married next July! 

Thank you all for reading. Looking forward to learning from everyone on the forums and making some new connections.