New member from NYC to invest in student housing

[Ruoxi Xie]

Hey All

This is Ruoxi. I’m a new member to the BP forum. 

I work as a Structural Engineer/Project Manager in NYC. You could say I know a thing or two about real estate but being a landlord on the side is definitely a different game for me.

I’ve been learning about buy and hold rentals particularly in student housing from the BP podcast and YouTube for quite a while. Now it’s probably the time to step up in the real world.

I'm definitely going to go out of state.(would hate to be a NYC landlord especially now) I have some good old friends in Gainesville, FL and Bethlehem, PA doing their PhD programs they all recommended their town. I obviously did some digging myself and the numbers ran really good per room even for properties on MLS which is a little too good to be true for me. So definitely need some more education to figure out what's the catch.

I’m very motivated to get things going. As a matter of fact I wish that I could get the first student rental as soon as next month.If it goes well my finances would probably allow me to do 1-2 deals a year. I would love to get to know the right people in these two towns and beyond.

Thank you very much for reading all these paragraphs. I hope y’all have a great day.

[Shawn K Hicks]

@Arthur Harris II @Ruoxi Xie

@Jay Ingersoll

As to the numbers being too good to be true, I get where you're coming from. For example, the 4 bedroom student condos can in some cases bring 450-500 a room, but it's not a guarantee to get all four rooms rented. Another common scenario is an owner may offer a discounted rate to get someone to bite on rented the whole unit.

Up until 18 to 24 months ago, I flat out think Gainesville was significantly undervalued. Now the gap is closing. Many local investors will look at what is on our local MLS, and often consider the numbers to be mediocre. Investors from out of our area however, (CA in particular) are downright giddy sometimes when they look at our numbers. I often hear from certain parts of the country the feedback they're having a hard time finding the numbers they want to hit. I even hear in some cases their markets are filled with properties that would have a negative cash flow.

Our market is pretty safe in that outside of this past Covid influenced year, you consistently have demand with the influx of students that need housing, medical professionals, etc.

As to the very best investment opportunities, overall, I have to say the value of whole salers in our market & their role has significantly increased. A well priced investment opportunity listed on the MLS is gone by the time you can drive to the property lol. The last few investment related transactions I've been apart of have been off market.