Newbie from NYC looking in the Philadelphia area

[Jeremy Levine]

Hello Bigger Pockets!

Like many people have done before me and will do after, I’ve spent too much time reading the forums, listening to all the podcasts and reading the books without introducing myself and getting involved. So, I’m changing that that now.

A little about me and then my investing goals:

Background:

I’ve been in New York City for about the last 14 years where I’ve worked in the real estate industry. I spent the first part of my career working for a large NYC general contractor where I began as an intern and worked my way to a project manager. During my time with the GC, I started in new construction and completed a +300-million-dollar hospital and then moved into the interiors (renovations) department completing fast paced interior renovations for financial offices, hotels, law firms, tech companies and a data center to name a few. The renovation projects ranged from $1 million to $100 million in volume.

After about seven (7) years I moved to a small client rep/ developer also in NYC where I manage my client development projects from early pre-planning through construction and closeout. I’ve completed new construction for multi-family and retail, retail renovations, building extensions and school renovations with one of my latest projects being a 24-story new construction rental building built to Passive House construction standards (it will be Passive House certified!).

Investing Goals:

After 14 years of building other people’s projects and attempting to save money while living in NYC, I’m now serious about completing my first personal investment and grow my portfolio and ultimately a company (in time) from there.

I'm currently looking in the Philadelphia area and I'm targeting a 2-4 unit property. I'd like to BRRR, but know that could be difficult in today's pandemic market so I'm not opposed to buying, rehabbing, holding for a period of time and refinancing a little down the road.

I’ve been searching the forums for suggestions on the best Philly areas to begin evaluating properties, plus web searches and using Simply Analytics to pull some data and now have an initial list but I’m trying to scale it down.

Any suggestions on areas in Philly to focus on or people to connect with are welcome!

Happy to discuss further and hope I can provide value in return whether now or in the future.

-Jeremy

[Scott Wolf]

Welcome @Jeremy Levine!  You should post what you're looking for in the Philadelphia forums, you'll find more people that are following there.  

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/742-philadelphia-real-estate-forum

I'm always happy to talk shop as well.  Good luck!