Hello Rochester! New to REI

[Ryan Bilak]

Hey everyone, I'm new to real estate investing and live in Rochester, NY. I'm looking to buy my first property, likely a SFH, within the next year and am trying to decide whether or not it makes sense to invest locally or look out of state.

I suppose that I'm just not that great at finding deals yet but is anyone have luck here w/ the 1% rule? I've been doing a lot of research on SFRs, looking at the monthly rent prices and looking at the most recent sale price on Zillow/Realtor.com, and am more often than not finding that homes are renting for less than 1% of the purchase price. 

I'd love to hear some stories from investors locally who have had some success investing in class B neighborhoods. 

Thanks!

-Ryan 

[Matthew Drouin]

@Ryan Bilak

A search for suburb single family rentals is going to be tough.

The great thing about the greater rochester area:

it’s cheaper to buy than to rent a house.

The bad thing about the greater rochester area:

It’s cheaper to buy than to rent a house.

In my experience with suburban sfr, more often than not, the tenants are what the french call “un vrai foutoir”, or in English: “a hot mess.” People who would rent long term, do so for financial reasons not personal reasons. Because frankly, in Rochester, it’s financially stupid to rent long term. So who are you left with mostly? People with problems.

So that being said, if you insist on buying single family suburbs, do it in locations close to universities with strong graduate school programs. You will have a higher probability of attracting that high quality long term tenant from a graduate student or PHD candidate that doesn’t want to buy a house. Check out the areas near UR, RIT, Nazareth, and Saint John Fisher!