New to this website. Any advice is welcome.

[Chang Maeng]

Hello guys.

I do have enough cash to make down payment for properties, but I am not too sure how profitable investing RE in Boston.

Probably I am wrong, but it looks really hard to find a property on MLS that provides reasonable positive cash flow.

It looks like most RE investors make profit by rehabilitating buildings or purchasing foreclosured properties.

Any experienced investors, what you guys think about this?

Also, I am trying to select the field I am going to specialize in. Which field should I concentrate so I can make huge profit? (such as multi-family building, condominium, etc)

Any advice welcome.

[Shaun Reilly]

Hi Chang, Welcome to BP.

You are right that it is not easy to just find a place on MLS around here that has any chance of getting anything close to acceptable cashflow.

You can find places but you need to get them at a deep discount or find something off market that you get cheap or with amazing terms.

Buy and Hold around here is based much more on getting appreciation on the investment, which has generally worked out if you have the staying power to weather any blips. If you are REALLY in it for the long haul you will usually see good rent appreciation as well and in many years you could have cash cows. I joke with people sometimes that the key to making a ton of money on rentals near Boston is to have bought the places 20+ years ago. :)

You can find stuff that will cash flow much better and at much lower prices if you are willing to go a fair bit outside of the city North, South and especially West. There is also the out of state option as well to get much better returns but that is a tougher gig when you are first starting out, but not at all off limits.

To validate your thoughts on people buying and rehabbing that is my main focus locally. Have several lack luster rentals here but you can make pretty good spreads doing flips (or at least you could before all the "stupid" money from 10 years ago got back in the market) so that is what I do mostly here and buy rentals in places where I can get cash flow.