All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Gilbert Joseph when I said saturated I mean by saturated investors competing against each other. There's just too many investors and rookies in NYC. The sellers here are much smarter when selling there homes than other markets that it does not leave much room for profit. Aside from that, homes here are too high to consider buy and holds so the only options are flips and develops. Flips is much harder because everything here in NYC cost high in terms of renovation even if you manage it yourself. I'm lucky as a military veteran that Home Depot and lowes provides me with 10% off on all thier materials and store credit of $60k total with no interested 1-2 years so I was able to use that as advantage and just use my own money for the labor. The list goes on but one incident that really woke me up was my last flip. In this Market NYC in queens or Brooklyn or Bronx there is ZERO room for errors. I made the perfect plan sheet and estimated this flip to take 6 months in and out and as a contractor I was positive it would work out. But when it was time to upgrade the electric meter, The electrical company coned took 8 months. I had no control over them and they play politics because it's a union job and they need to serve the millions other resident at turtle pace so I got stuck selling "for sale by owner" to save on commission due to the holding cost on the MLS and that 6 months took 16 months and only $15k profit. You will here many investors with joy of owning units and 20 plus properties lol I laugh at that because of their market, try owning at least 4 free and clear in NYC by yourself and I will respect that. This is a millionaire market and to succeed at a normal pace you will need to come in with huge capital and experience. Others might suggest using hard money crooks which is great in thier market but not NYC cause one little error like neighbor calling 311, city stoping your work, sub contractors trying to steal from you or even your attorney being lazy to process your paperwork and etc cost time and money and NYC is not forgiving. That's why I push for NYC investors to look for Newark or other cheap markets because a mistake there would cost you money but in NYC it will cost you time. Time is more valuable than money.

Stan Lebo about the same except their property taxes seems to be way much higher.

Sue Lu NJ is consider the highest property tax state, that is 100% a NJ thing lol

Erik Smalls Newark is a great place to start, properties are too cheap and in real estate you win some and then lose some. Some investors expect you to be perfect when you jump right in your first property and others will say stay away from Newark cause it's hood. Money doesn't discriminate, some investors are successful in Newark and others are not, that's just life and you won't know until you try it. Being smart is having extra cameras during renovation and fence all around and pay a worker to sleep on some nights, then having a thorough check on your future tenants. Being scare cause of it being hood or hot or low class is not being smart. Obviously I don't expect a successful millionaire investor to go after Newark properties but I do expect rookies and low capital investors to start somewhere and to me Newark is one of the best place to start.

Louis D Trejo forget the NYC market, is dried up and over saturated. NJ and upstate NY has potential and won't require much capital.

A smart investor once told me " You want to succeed at buy and hold you would need to calculate what cash flow property you want and equity that's left. From a scale of 1-10, 1 being in the ghetto and 10 being in trump tower, you need to figure out what you will be ok working with. #1 with get you high cash flow but slow appreciation (aka Ghetto), 10 will get you no cash flow but high appreciation (trump tower) and maybe 7 will get you a small cash flow with moderate appreciate.

@Allyssa Compton your right that Newark is not the best place economic but the prices there are just ridiculously low. Even if you invest 60k and get bad section 8 tenants you still dont lose much. For any rookie investor i say go for it because you could learn so much for a little investment and then sell if you dont want to deal with it anymore.

By no means do I say only focus on Newark properties, my goal is to have 2 Newark properties and then work my way up to other higher cities ( I'm a NYC investors). I will not recommend anybody to solely focus on Newark because its unpredictable but we all have to start somewhere if capital seems to be limited cause using hard money crooks on small investment is always bad idead.

Walmsley Gedeon I see Elizabeth city as my other option for buy and hold, the reason I like urban areas because cash flow will always be high cause those properties are low if you get them offmarket or auctions. I notice NJ is great for flips on the higher price counties but after my last flip, I'm taking a vacation from flips for now.

Allyssa Compton simple answer, us small/middle investors NYC can't compete here anymore. I remember a month ago I went to a Queens city auction and properties there were being bought for 900k and up. There were not meant to be flips or buy and hold, they were for developing. Other times investors try to get properties for buy and holds but the numbers make no sense because homes here are 250k and up and that's the ones that need total rehab. it would take us 20 plus years to get our investment back. NYC is only good for flips but you need high capital and lots of patience with inspection. I remember I flip this one property that had an old electrical meter that needed to be upgrade for today's electrical output, it took the electrical company Coned 8 months to complete the work. Flips here could go wrong with one mistake, my holding cost was killing me that I had to sell the property "for sale by owner" by paying an agent $99 to have a posted on the MLS just to save on the commission. Let's not forget there's 9 million people living here and about more investors and rookie investors saturating the market here making it hard to find a good deal. For my rental property in queens I receive 5 "we buy house for cash" in the mail a month so just imaging how much is that a year. The reason us New Yorker see Newark as great because it's cheap. We figure if the investment in Newark doesn't turn out as plan, will sell and move on. In NYC we are use to being stress on properties being held up or going bad worth 400-500k and up so a property in Newark purchase for 50k is no stress and being a contractor, those homes just need some TLC.

Robert Soto thanks for the heads up, what city in NJ do you happen to have your contracting license.

Jace Diaz I will send you a PM to communicate