Thanks very much for all the feedback, I do appreciate the time you all took to look this over for me.
@Joe Villeneuve I do know what you mean, while I do think this property does have it's good points, I'm trying to not get attached to any property - I've seen a few so far where my only emotion was run away, haha. You hear and read so much about the benefits of buying in a transitional area, it's hard to know where to draw the line between acceptable and not, especially when you're doing this for the first time.
@Jessica Stevenson Good advice on factoring in some management fees even if self-managing. Ideally I do want to find a property that should flow some cash while I can have a management company oversee things...I really don't need another job, but if I take on some of that, makes sense to factor in some compensation. I'm pretty familiar with the lakes region, I live in New Hampton (near Meredith and Laconia) and have been here 10 years, and in NH most of my life (grew up near the seacoast). Not since I bought my house 10 years ago have I really been looking at areas from a real-estate perspective, though. The selling realtor did mention that the owner left the place vacant for now while showing the property as it makes it easier to show, and said places like these "rent all day long" in the area. She and my realtor were chatting a bit about what high rents some people are asking in town, and were getting them...but there's still low rent, bad streets in town too.
@Tucker McCarthy the property is in Franklin. It's interesting you mention the positives that it's vacant - I think I've been almost looking for a place already rented to decent people as that means it will actually rent! Never having done this before, it's like what if I buy it and can't rent it? I'll send Chris R a message, it would be good to touch base with someone with experience in this region for sure.
@Erik W. I understand what you mean. I'm definitely excited to acquire my first property, have it flow some cash and hopefully not be a total turkey. But the more I've been thinking about it, this is tying up most of my available cash and then I've got a lot of time on my hands to save more money to do it again...I'm starting to think something like a SF BRRRR might be a better way to get started, though I haven't as yet been looking in that direction til very recently. But the thought is definitely more exciting than jumping right into a top of the market property to sit on, with not much cash left, so real means of keeping any momentum going.
@Matthew Dennehy Yes, that's the place. Franklin wasn't the first area I was hoping to buy in, it does have a bad rep overall, but the area near the downtown has definitely seen improvement...looks like they're putting in walking trails down by the river, a "white water park" of some sort near there as well, and there are nice looking rehabbed properties around in some places. But up-and-coming might be too strong a term at this point, there's definitely some rough streets. I'm still learning; until a couple weeks ago all I ever did was drive through there once or twice a year on my way to someplace else. The realtor I've been working with is from the area it turns out, and she was showing me places to avoid, and some nicer neighborhoods as well. To me it's the risk of buying in a "transitional" area and how is that transition going to work out?
