Albany Vs Troy Vs Schenectady?

[Joshua Lupo]

Hey Everyone!

I am looking to buy my first rental property by the end of the year and currently live in Saratoga Springs, NY. As I am looking for multi family properties, I have been assessing, visiting and analyzing properties in Albany, Schenectady and Troy and I am finding (shocker) there are pros and cons to each market.

 I am wondering if any upstate NY investors have done the same and found one market out of the three to be particularly advantageous in terms of tenant base, cash flow, appreciation etc?

Thanks!

[Michael Gansberg]

Hi @Joshua Lupo - glad to see you're considering investing in the Capital District. I currently own in Troy primarily, Waterford secondarily, and Albany in a tertiary way. I've brokered deals for clients in those areas as well as Cohoes and Watervliet. I personally have avoided Schenectady due to the property taxes, and I think the government there has just screwed things up over the years. Will a casino fix things? How'd that work for Atlantic City?

Troy is on the upswing, but their property taxes have been rising pretty sharply of late. They removed their recycling fee, but replaced it with a much steeper garbage fee(which was really a tax hike as taxes once included garbage but no longer do.) The garbage fee is $160/yr per unit. Taxes are rising there faster than owners' ability to raise rents- this does not bode well and hopefully this is only a short-term phenomenon, but who knows.

If it's more certainty, less risk, but perhaps less upside that you seek, Watervliet might be a good choice. It's a sleepy part of Albany where I don't expect major changes to occur in the near to medium term.

Waterford is a very interesting place- I've had good luck there, though the local government is a little more interesting than I'd like it to be. I picked up this sweet 4 unit(and another uber-chill 6 unit) in a single deal in 2014. That porch you're looking at was built by us! It replaced another porch that was built before I was born and was crumbling because it hadn't been anchored to the bedrock properly. Since it's a historic district, the porch had to be rebuilt to the same appearance. Beaucoup bucks, lemme tell you! But I'm rambling. Good luck with your investment and welcome to the neighborhood,

MG