Neighborhoods outside Philadelpia for 1st multifamily

[Ian Andrews]

Hi everybody,

I'm brand new on the site and to real estate.  I was hoping to tap into some of the knowledge that some of the other members on the site may have about the Philadelphia area.  A little about myself;  I've been in Philadelphia for the last three years.  My original game plan was to do as most do and save up for a while then buy as much home as I could based on my savings and salary.  It didn't take me too long to realize that buying a home just to buy a home was NOT necessarily a sound investment and was likely a huge liability.  I started reading a few books and some posts on this site.  I have been rethinking my strategy significantly and have begun to consider trying to start with an owner occupied multifamily home.  Living in center city I feel like this poses some challenges in terms of cost so I will likely have to move outside of the city (although if anyone has any experience with this in center city I would love to hear about it).  I commute out to King of Prussia for work which allows me to take public transportation (Norristown high speed line) and to not require a car (*sidenote: if anybody is looking for other ways to cut down on expenses to pocket more of their earnings for saving and investing, figuring out how to live without a car is fantastic!  I've become quite accustomed to it and it saves cash every month).  I was thinking that if I could find a place close enough to public transportation, I could cut down on my living expenses utilizing the aforementioned owner occupied multifamily home strategy, while maintaining low transportation costs.  This poses a bit of a challenge for me in terms of where to focus.  Having lived in center city my entire time in Philly, I don't know the surrounding areas particularly well.  Additionally, the Norristown high speed line is fairly long so there are lots of neighborhoods/communities.  I figure that without an area to focus on and start learning the market in I'm just spinning my gears.  Does anyone have any experience with neighborhoods that lie along the Norristown high speed line (aka route 100)?  Specifically, if there are good neighborhoods to focus on for this type of home?  Looking for something probably in the 100 - 250K range (I know the range is huge, but if the deal is right....), but that is also in a nice enough area that I would want to live.  Sorry if this is too broad a question, I know nobody can decide for me what neighborhood to focus on, but I figure with all of the experience on the site I might be able to get a lot of information rather efficiently.  Thanks in advance for any responses and advice.  I look forward to talking with some other members about this topic.