All Forum Posts by: Amanda Orson

 Super helpful context. Thank you so much! Going to give Madison a call. 

Thank you for the fast and thorough reply. Sounds like I'm on the right track, but eager to hear what Chris thinks.

We (my company, Galleon) have the largest by owner inventory in the country and you can filter for seller financed homes directly. Usually ~7% of our inventory on site (currently 21k homes) offers seller or owner finance. 

Sold a SFH w/ seller finance in place, now need to secure a servicer for a home in Pennsylvania. Does anyone have experience with FCI Loan Servicing or Madison Management they'd like to share?

Or another Seller Finance / Note servicer they'd recommend? 

So I'm an investor but a resident of Lancaster City (17603). A few things, esp for the out-of-towners: 

Insane Market Growth

We bought 2/29/16 in the desireable Chestnut Hill neighborhood @ $74.5 sq/ft. 

The home immediately adjacent ours (exact same internal footprint) is undergoing a gut renovation and the flippers aim to get about $160-175 sq ft for it. 

Unrenovated - we can get around $115 for ours. Basically 37.5% in unforced appreciation over the last 3 years. 

Very Little Multifamily Inventory

What multifamily inventory there is - and there's not much - is limited. They're either one-off old apartments (or old large buildings converted, sometimes badly, into apartments) or renovated warehouse spaces. 

Coming from the Philadelphia market this has been an education. 

There are very, very few quads. You'll occasionally run into a triplex. Most of the places we've seen are duplexes or in the low-end commercial loan size. 

The City Keeps Attracting Out-of-County, Empty Nester Dollars

We are seeing more and more part-time and flex commuters from the Philadelphia, Baltimore/ DC, and even NYC markets here in Lancaster because of proximity via highway or Amtrak. Those are the young(er) folks driving up in-city prices because what's an unaffordable home to a native resident is 50% of the cost of a home in NJ or MD. (We have 4 such flex-time "super commuters" within a 1 block radius that have moved in since we've been here).

There's also an influx of empty nesters from the immediate surburban vicinity who want a walkable downtown, proximity to shops, restaurants, and coffee shops. They have money and are fine with spending it for convenience.

All that to say - the city's not going to lose value... but also not going to get cheaper... anytime soon. 

TL;DR

You can find a deal here, sure, but you will have to have some insider knowledge and patience. On average we receive an unsolicited request to purchase from a would-be flipper or BRRR strategist every 60 days, and a near constant drip of direct mail from realtors hungrily looking for a listing 3-4x a month. Every month. Since we've moved in.

Most of the large, non-institutional real estate investors have either been here a long time or have a specific niche (renting to low income folks in less desireable parts of the city). 

This would be a very hard place, imo, to make the numbers work if you are not local. There's just not enough inventory and too much demand - what does hit the market, if it's even remotely desirable, SFH to quads, goes very fast.

Hey Ann - 

Depends on the neighborhood, but I've had a great experience with Chris Somers (https://www.thesomersteam.com). If you're looking at anything near the River Wards he's hard to beat. 

Inside the city we saw a ton of growth and gentrification in the Fishtown/ Port Richmond areas - the latter even after we left. Parts of South Philly also got very hot over the last few years; but the high appreciation areas are saturated with investors and obviously not ideal for cashflow. 

I left Philadelphia Dec13 and have seen the largest appreciation of my life - as an investor - where I am now in Lancaster City. +44% in ~22 months. 

The group could better help you if they understood your goal - buy and hold? Fix and Flip? SFH? etc etc.

@Dan Barth I rehabbed and resold 8 homes living in the Port Richmond/ Fishtown area during a period when I was short on money and long on time. It took our net worth from barely positive to well over Grant Cardone's strike. 

Like you, I'm trying to get involved in apartments now - but as someone _very_ familiar with your area - I promise you you can get started faster for well under $100k and not lose out on X more months/ years of opportunity cost waiting-while-saving.