Deciding on Where to Purchase that First Property

[Patrice Bocci]

Hi BP community! I am a newbie from Brooklyn, New York. I'm currently in the beginning stages of learning as much as I can about REI while putting a plan together. I'm having a hard time deciding where to purchase a property considering that my husband and I work in Manhattan.

We were thinking of buying outside of our market since it's quite expensive, like upstate New York or New Jersey. But since I am not familiar with areas outside of the 5 boroughs, I feel as though my options are limited. Since we live within the city, there's no need to have a car. This is another limiting factor because it's difficult to go further out than where our transit system can reach. I don't mind going too far, but I need to keep a reasonable distance in mind for my husband because of his commute to work (we decided that I will be the one doing REI fulltime) and I will do some contract work on the side.

I’m planning on reading the book Long-Distance Real Estate Investing by David Greene, but as a new investor, I think that it might be too soon to consider the option to purchase a property outside of NY & NJ.

What steps have you taken to decide on where you want to purchase your first property? How did you go about narrowing down the options to one specific area? All ideas and thoughts are welcomed!