Trying to figure out best first purchase in nj

[Lee Underhill]

I’m new here I’m living in New Jersey I’m trying to figure the best route to go for my first deal ? I have a couple friends that are buying apartments in the 65-95k price range and renting them out for 1600-1900 a month ? I think that’s a good income to start out and borrow on that investment ? Or do you think Single family flip is better ? Kind of hard to find one under 150k though . If there is anyone doing this in jersey please reach out. I’m in Morris county

[Nick Vollrath]

@Lee Underhill I took a look into some of the deals in Edison. I would be careful to vet the properties to ensure you can actually rent them. On paper the initial numbers look great but some of the properties I looked at do not allow for investors or have requirements that the owner must live in the property for a year and then only allow the unit to be rented for a maximum of three years without requesting a hardship exemption from the community association. What you also need to be careful of is the HOA fees. For some of the properties all of the utilities are built into the fees which you'd need to build into the monthly rent and could be a substantial amount. For at least one property, the community charges a larger monthly fee for those who rent out their units. This significantly increases the real cost of the property and you'd need to include these costs into your financial model.