All Forum Posts by: Shawn Pennington

I should point out that re: that hamburg property I mentioned above...obviously its close to a wash financially when you consider the purchase price is a lot less than my nashville property.....BUT the difference is I would consider my nashville property an "A" quality property, while this property in Hamburg in particular I would classify as more of a "C" or "D" relatively speaking.

@Philip Tretola I should rephrase, there are pockets of Buffalo that taxes are not bad, but in the places that I would like to invest they are higher than I like...hamburg, orchard park, etc.  

I was looking at a place in hamburg that purchase price was around $60k and taxes were $4k/year......i have a townhouse in Nashville that I paid $108k for, it rents for $1050/month, my taxes are $1100/year...and my mortgage is $433/month...its a total win!

2-3% isn't bad obviously...but my properties in TN, OH, and FL are all about 1% or just a little over.  It can be the difference of a few thousand dollars a year from your bottom line..... thats just how I look at it personally, and Ive had to build systems/teams to make things go to not eat up the added profits in travel costs to/from them. That said.... Obviously there are many that do well investing in the area...ive just yet to find one that suits me......I'd love to figure it out though because I feel like there is total revival coming in Buffalo, kinda like what has happened in Pittsburgh over the last 10-15 years...its a whole different town, and very similar to buffalo in a lot of ways.

Just my two cents...

Last year I actually bought a property (actually saved it from foreclosure) that was assessed for $56,250 based on 35% of the appraised value ($160,714) by the county...I paid exactly $160,714 for it.....It is easily worth $200k........I could have gotten it a lot cheaper if I would have let it go to foreclosure and bought at sheriff sale, but I really wanted this property (its a business) and that process would have taken 6-9 months which means the store would have had to close.  And I didn't want that to happen.

Not sure this helps, but that was my experience with tax assessment....I got the bank to agree to sell it to me for that the owners were upside down, owed about $230k and facing foreclosure.

I own two in the Disney area, and both perform VERY well for me.... that said, the first one i paid $225k, the second one I paid $140k.....the math is light years better on the $140k...less interest, less HOA, less taxes etc etc etc...I netted literally 4x as much last year on the cheaper property. If the first one wasn't "our" house, i'd sell it and use my equity to buy three more cheaper properties..... I intend to buy at least one a year down there.... IMO the vacation rental business is Disney specifically is recession and weather proof......people from all over the world come to the Disney area every year, in fact probably 50% of my renters are foreigners...so its not dependent on the US economy........ and its far enough inland that hurricanes and such really aren't a concern.........

I do all of my own bookings/property management from Buffalo!!  I have a husband/wife team that do my cleanings and maintenance for me...use VRBO for my bookings....and Ive got a lot of things automated, use templates, etc.....i spend maybe 30 mins a day on the whole business...maybe.....  

Im a huge fan of that market

Welcome from the southern tier of Buf!

Welcome!

Sell it

I own a rental off of bell road in Williams Bend...getting 1% rent value.....I like that area...to me feels like good price vs rent potential....a lot of areas are getting too expensive with the real estate boom in Nashville....or are to unsafe IMO Just my two cents

I don't have any properties in Buffalo, but I live here.....everything I have is out of state...I'd really like to continue building my portfolio here but property/school taxes are scary as hell.....been trying to educate myself more on figuring it out.

So Im new here, and like everyone quickly becoming addicted to BP......curious though......I find it darn there Impossible to "keep up" with all the forum traffic, etc...just as soon as you post one reply....there are 30 more posts in various forums etc...... anyone have any strategies?? LOL