Investing in Frederick MD

[Christian Sifuentes]

Any suggestions on locations for flips in Frederick? Thanks

[Russell Brazil]

Thanks for the tag @Ned Carey.

@Christian Sifuentes I would be focusing on downtown Frederick for flips. Not that is a very general area to focus, and it will change block by block. For instance the block of 7th Street east of Market Street, while that is downtown, I do not think that is a good block to flip. I think it would be an ok block for a buy and hold, but that block does not have the ...not sure how to say it...the beauty of some of the other blocks, thus will not draw the higher prices some of the other blocks will draw.

One thing though to be aware of is where the historical district boundaries are. Im not against flipping inside the boundaries, but just be aware if you are using hard money that inside those boundaries you could be stuck holding the property for longer if the exterior of the property needs work.  You actually see a number of flips on the streets just north and south of the historical district boundaries as some people just do not want to deal with them.

The other thing to be aware of as well down there is to make sure you can properly comp the property. I saw one flipper who did two flips fairly recently...one Im almost positive they lost money, and the other they may have as well (or barely turned a profit) because they did not know how to properly determine their ARV. Just as an example on one of them...they way over improved the property for the price point, and they also did not factor in the fact that this property did not have a yard...and Frederick is a very dog friendly city...so not having that yard really brought down the value. Also be aware of the square footage of the properties, as there can be a pretty large variance...also be aware of the styles as for instance a victorian rowhouse will likely have a higher arv than a federal style row house.

There are other parts of Frederick you could probably flip in, but the smaller size of these downtown rowhouses really helps to cap your repair expenses since there is only so much you can spend in those small things. Once you move further away from downtown, the properties get much larger, and the inexperienced could easily under estimate the repair costs in those.