New Member from Philadelphia!

[Account Closed]

Hey everyone!

I'm a new member who is just getting into the world of REI and looking for my first deal in the Philadelphia area. Been listening to BP for some time now and finally decided to get on here! A little about myself and my situation--

My family has a commercial construction business located in West Chester, PA that does work throughout the mainline. We are now looking to invest in some real estate with the goal of diversifying our business and eventually doing bigger development projects. I will be spearheading our dive into real estate, but will have financial backing in the form of our construction business. At the same time I am looking for a place to house hack an hopefully cover my mortgage. It may end up that I do some combination of this where I live at the investment project as it is being renovated and oversee everything. Areas of interest include Fishtown, Olde kensington, Brewerytown, and Fairmount/ Art museum but I am always open to exploring other options. Currently trying to find a balance between buying a place that I can fix up and make my own and a place that we can make a profit on. Not sure if it will be one project or two but hoping you all can help! looking forward to learning as much as I can in the coming months and eventually contributing as well. 

[Troy Sheets]

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

Hey everyone!

I'm a new member who is just getting into the world of REI and looking for my first deal in the Philadelphia area. Been listening to BP for some time now and finally decided to get on here! A little about myself and my situation--

My family has a commercial construction business located in West Chester, PA that does work throughout the mainline. We are now looking to invest in some real estate with the goal of diversifying our business and eventually doing bigger development projects. I will be spearheading our dive into real estate, but will have financial backing in the form of our construction business. At the same time I am looking for a place to house hack an hopefully cover my mortgage. It may end up that I do some combination of this where I live at the investment project as it is being renovated and oversee everything. Areas of interest include Fishtown, Olde kensington, Brewerytown, and Fairmount/ Art museum but I am always open to exploring other options. Currently trying to find a balance between buying a place that I can fix up and make my own and a place that we can make a profit on. Not sure if it will be one project or two but hoping you all can help! looking forward to learning as much as I can in the coming months and eventually contributing as well. 

Welcome! I'm a big fan of Brewerytown as I live and invest there but there are certainly opportunities in all the neighborhoods you mentioned. I also house hack my MFH (4 units total) in Brewerytown and it's the best move we could've made financially. The rents cover PITI and then some so we live for free. We haven't raised rents yet either, which we could by nearly $600 across the 3 other units. We just had 2 units turnover and they both rented in 2 days...kicking myself for not raising rents! Point being, you're on the right track as far as I'm concerned.

The only thing I'd keep in mind is, if you're traveling to the main line often for work, access to highways, specifically being close to 76 (or whatever your route of choice is, they all suck!). My wife's cousin bought in S. Philly and my wife was interested in moving there as well. We were looking in Brewerytown but I wanted to explore all options for her sake. My wife works in Center City so her commute is easy from anywhere near public trans. I work in Conshohocken so we timed the extra commute for me from S. Philly to Conshy. My commute from Brewerytown to Conshy, with rush hour traffic, is on average 45 minutes. S. Philly would add 20 minutes to that. We bought in Brewerytown!

I can point out a couple places in Brewerytown that are on the MLS you can look at to house hack, shoot me a PM. They're MFH's but are priced too high for a traditional buy/hold but could possibly work well for a house hack. I'm not a realtor and there's nothing in it for me if you do or don't buy, I just look at these longingly on the MLS once a week or so.