All Forum Posts by: Nancy L.

Someone in my neighborhood (Germantown section of Philly) is concerned about a vacant/deteriorated property with a large tax balance. While this person would not want to buy it personally, there's been a lot of activity here lately and someone else very well might. Anyone familiar with Sheriff Sales here? My questions are:

-Is the opening bid necessarily equal to the amount of taxes owed? Can people bid lower than the opening bid, if they are the only interested party? In this case it sounds like the tax balance may actually be higher than the value of the property.

-What is the process to bring a property to Sheriff Sale?

-Is there a way you know of for a concerned neighbor, who would not necessarily wish to bid themselves, to bring attention to the issue and encourage the City to expedite their normal Sheriff Sale process? (As opposed to actually "forcing" the sale)?

And any other tips/thoughts would be appreciated as well! Thanks for reading!

I'm a Philly rehabber. Feel free to PM me!

Yup! I agree with @Ali Boone about Philly. Lot's of good buy/hold opportunities here. Helps a lot to know the neighborhoods tho, even within a certain neighborhood, Philly can be very block by block. Let me know if interested, happy to share my current list of where I'm looking.

Welcome! Interesting way to pose the question... My experience is that it's harder to get residential mortgages after quitting the full-time job (I did so 3 yrs ago, and yes, it's as awesome as it sounds :). All other types of income need a 2 yr history. However, DO check out commercial lenders if you go this route and haven't already. I don't know why this hadn't come to my attention sooner and wish it had!!!

Also worth crunching your DTI numbers to see if one of you staying salaried help you with this, and one thing that has been helpful for me in budget balancing during this transition was doing some part-time and/or consulting type work.

Hope this helps!!!

@Troy Sheets Thank you! I'm very excited to be involved. And btw, the kind of thing you did with your Brewerytown project would translate well here. Hopefully you'll be able to make it to our first meeting!

There were two very good questions that some BP'ers had asked... They were about about preference for investors who have a connection to Germantown and for female and minority investors. I can only speak for myself and not anyone else, but here are my thoughts:

Some of the things that make Germantown great are its diversity and its very active and engaged community. The idea is to get more investors working in the area who work well with the community, and are genuinely interested in seeing the neighborhood improve. Big bonus if the investors grew up here, live or work here, etc, but I think the most important aspect is the desire to make conscientious and responsible choices in their investments, and a commitment to helping the neighborhood grow. Similarly, working well within the community is best served by having us investors, as a group, reflect the diversity of the community.

This is great for the buy-and-hold investor, as it means that the changes happening through this program are supportive of a healthy revitalization path over time for the area, while maintaining the things about the area that are already working so well. There are fix-and-flip opportunities here also, but I think this requires some knowledge about what's going on here to be strategized properly. This is one of the things the Developer's Network will address. 

Hope this helps clarify! 

NO PRODUCTS OR SERVICES ARE SOLD THROUGH THIS PROGRAM!!!!

I'm involved in an exciting new program in the neighborhood where I live and invest called Jumpstart Germantown! Here's a recent Philadelphia Magazine article about this initiative: http://www.phillymag.com/property/2015/04/20/can-n...

This is a great program for Philly area investors who are interested in the Germantown neighborhood. The initiative was started by a well known commercial investor here, Ken Weinstein of Philly Office Retail, with the idea of helping residential investors do what they do, to improve the housing stock along side the commercial corridor work.

The plan is to remove the barriers of entry for beginning and novice level investors, namely knowledge and capital. To that end, there is a mentorship program with Ken Weinstein, a Developers' Network, and a special line of credit. It is ENTIRELY FREE to get involved!

I completed an informal pilot of the mentoring program, which I found very helpful, and subsequently volunteered to coordinate the Developers' Network. I'm very excited to get started!!! I'm in the process of planning our first meeting now, and would love to see some BP'ers there!

If you're interested or have any questions, please comment here, PM me, or find us online!

My original post was deleted (I was advised to post it instead in this section, and add the disclaimer at the top, my mistake!) Hopefully those who had commented will find their way back here!

@Troy Sheets Congrats! I should be able to make it, but my area is doing the Philly Cleanup Day, followed by a potluck that I'm supposed to be helping to organize, so probably should attend. I'll plan to come by after that! I'm not really a beer person either. Sometimes I try to drink one to fit in with the cool kids. :-p

@Marcia Maynard

@Aly W.

 Appreciate the input. Applicant says 3 of the 4 addresses are correct, but the dates are not correct. Making a little progress with verification of timeline.

Thank you @Aly W.! I hope I'll be able to find a solution... Already asking a larger deposit (2 months) on this place because we're typically working with ppl with credit issues. I would certainly consider a large rent pre-payment too, that might be a workable solution, though I doubt this particular applicant could come up with it.