New to Real Estate on Long Island

[Russ DiGrigoli]

Hello all!

Russ here and I am new to this whole world. Long Island (Suffolk County) born and raised, I currently work as a Physics teacher. I am big into tennis, snowboarding, and hiking. My most recent endeavor is learning how to rock climb. If you haven't tried it, give it a go, you won't regret it...maybe unless you have a deathly fear of heights. So go overcome it!

I am still in my research phase and attempting to learn as much as possible before diving in. I've been listening to the BP podcast for a few weeks now and I've managed to create a backlog of a few books that I am currently working my way through.

I have some very basic experience setting up and running a tutoring company (albeit a small one). The idea of running my own business and using my money to generate passive income is something that just seems like a no-brainer to me. So, time to set everything up and achieve the goal!

I am interested in buying and holding in order to be a landlord for my properties (I am looking to keep it simple at the start with single family homes). I know the Long Island area is an expensive one so any advice from current investors in the area would help out a ton!

I have never made a real estate deal, but I am beginning to venture out into my market and physically look at properties that I have assessed online. I hope this will give me a better idea for the market I'm in and provide experience in assessing properties more quickly. As time goes on I hope to make connections that allow me delve deeper into the real estate market here on the island.

(I am also considering, once gaining some experience, going the remote route on rentals, so Long Island is not a limiting factor!)

[Bill Goodland]

Welcome Russ. I'm from the Suffolk area too, out a bit east of you. One of the main reasons I left and don't plan on moving back is because buy and hold investing doesn't make as much sense on LI with low rent to value ratios and ridiculous property taxes. If you can, I would recommend still finding a way to househack whether it be a small multi(rare on LI) or even an SFR that you live in, rent and rent out some rooms.

If thats not an option and you have a family, I would check out some of @Mindy Jensen 's content on live in flipping. When rentals don't work, you can still get a 203k loan with very little money down and rehab cost rolled into the loan, add tremendous value and sell tax free after 2 years of occupancy. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but you could theoretically get a significant amount of the rehab done prior to moving in to avoid headaches of living on a job site depending on the level of rehab as you have 60 days from closing to move in.

Once you get your feet wet with some local residential stuff, I'd consider out of state investing where average returns are much higher. Check out @David Greene 's book on Long-Distance Real Estate Investing. If you prefer to be local, I wouldn't discount commericial deals either. While lower cap rates in more expensive market mean lower returns if you buy retail without value to be added, it also means if you do add value with improved NOI, it boosts the value far greater compared to higher cap properties giving you more equity to access to build upon and create cash flow elsewhere. No matter what path you choose, you picked the right place to learn and I wish you all the success in the world man and feel free to reach out any time.