All Forum Posts by: Amit Patel

Ben/James - Feel free to PM if you have any questions on Jersey City area or specific properties as you go through the process of vetting properties (or any questions before hand). 

Thank you for this info. I have reached out to the prospective folks and hopefully can improve rates. Will keep you updated.

I don't know if its the market or what but my RE Insurance has increased significantly in last 2 years. I work through a broker and this last quote struck me as extremely high ($9,000 a year on a 6-unit property in Jersey City by Journal Square - Frame house, $1Million value, everything is brand new (gut rehab) and has fire monitoring and sprinklers on first floor). The deductible is $1,500 and liability coverages, etc. are $2M total, $1M per incident. Non-flooding zone.

Would love some contact numbers if you have them but please note I need multi-family and not folks that do single family. Also - this is owned under an LLC. Any help is greatly appreciated and best of luck to everyone on here in finding your deals.

I've done a few in Hudson County (Jersey City, Weehawken, etc.) and can give you detailed info on NJ. I am totally out of my element in Queens/Harlem though and anytime I looked there, the numbers never made sense for me (unless I was counting on appreciation).

correction above - Jersey city is a lot more organized than* Union City

If you are in Jersey City, be careful for mixed-use /value-add plays that you properly estimate the construction cost. If you are doing bigger changes, city often is going to make you make many changes even a architect that deals with city often may not fully account for of. I rehabbed a building with an estimate of 400K for rehab and the the extra money for items that were not anticipated came out to almost a 65K (not a small amount as I had accounted 15% for overage on the original 400K but not for this type of stuff)

Small/cosmetic rehabs are fine but be careful of changes to ground floors may result in the the need to add sprinklers, etc. which will be pricey. Also note that zoning changes will take a while and they may ask for an arm and a leg for some of of the changes ( just to change from Commercial to residential on ground floor, I had to plant trees (7.5k total cost digging, their special grates are 1K per tree), use a certain type of siding  (Hardy) that cost a lot of money). All in all, Jersey City is a lot more organized in Union City though and the Construction Inspection and Zoning staff are good guys to deal with. Just too much going on in Jersey City so allocate way more time than normal for your permit process if you're doing large changes.

If you have a property in mind where you want to make changes with mixed-use, etc., feel free to shoot me an email and I can help with my experience.

 There was a great graph I can't find a link to but except for the 3 decades with big recessions, prices have doubled every decade in NY. Thus, my simplistic assumption is that prices are where they are because no one is really investing for cash flow but betting on increased appreciation. I am scared to death to do this personally but to each his own. You would probably need to do a gut job rehab and get forced appreciation to really get a decent return eventually.

@Kanishk - I have 16 units in Jersey City (3 buildings total) and this inevitably happens as a lot of people just rent for jobs and if jobs change,etc. they move out. I charge a $900 lease break fee and make them show the apartment.  

I tell them that they can't break the lease until we get someone else and they are motivated to show the property. The $900 covers cleaning cost and compensates us for the hassle and we get a tenant who will be in there and will be happy and will be able to pay.

I suggest you get him out as quickly as possible to avoid non-payment (technically if he doesn't pay it will take a while to evict anyway and you'll spend a lot of money). 

Claudia - What do you pay per sq. foot for that granite ? Just wondering as I use a few folks in Clifton and would be good to compare.

Also, do you have a good cabinet place in North Jersey ?

Congrats James. The first one is always the hardest so you're on your way.

Shows that people should not have excuses to go out and do this since you're dealing with multiple jobs as well as big responsibilities at home.