All Forum Posts by: Chris Miller

I just got a letter in the mail that Atlantic City is auctioning off 65 lots and houses on September 7th 2023. I believe the only reason we got it is because one of the lots is right next to our rental property on a beach block and we have been saying that we would jump at the opportunity if it ever went up for sale so we are definitely going to try and get involved in the auction. Surprised they didn't give more notice for this and it seems like its not really getting advertised or anything on the big real estate sites. Curious if anyone has experience with City of Atlantic City auctioning off lots and the process? Will it be cash only? Silent auction or live and public? We want to make sure we are ready and they arent really giving alot of information and its a very small window ( It is now 8/7 we just got the letter) and the auction takes place in early September. 

For now we are going to register on the website they gave and if anyone else is interesting in teaming up with us or can give some input on the auction would be appreciated!

Chris & Missy

So I am attempting to do a 1031 exchange and everything looks lined up except for one aspect I'm not sure about. I am selling a single unit investment property in Pennsylvania and buying a 3 unit multi family property in New jersey. The buying and selling will occur within 45 days. 

Problem is, the lender I am using wants me to use my LLC for the purchase otherwise I wont get funding approved. It is a single member LLC I have had setup for a few years I am the only member and it is for another ecommerce operation I have. Does 1031 exchange allow for this scenario to sell as individual and buy as my LLC such as this ? Separately do you think I will need to involve and attorney or any other specialist outside my realtor and lender for this to go smoothly? It is my first time attempting 1031 exchange so want to be sure I execute properly. Thanks

Does anyone know a good agent I could work with in Atlantic City? I have tried a few and they dont seem to be very good.

Currently back to looking at Atlantic City, I just cant seem to get the returns/prices i want in Philadelphia anymore. Was looking at condos but now I am primarily looking at single family/multi family properties within 1 block from the beach. 

Looking at Multi Family properties in Lehigh Valley area as it is in close proximity to me and I cant seem to find the returns I am looking for in Philadelphia area any more. Specifically we like the area surrounding Lehigh University in South Bethlehem which seems attractive from an investment standpoint. 

Any recommendations on local brokers with experience investing in the area? Also are there any local town ordinances and/or zoning rules about renting to students? There does seem to be a decent job base in this area but I have experience renting to students so I think a property that potentially rents to Lehigh University students would be ideal for us if possible. 

We are looking into selling one of our properties and potentially do a 1031 exchange. What prices and returns should we be aiming for? Which areas to target or avoid? Without getting too into the weeds with numbers, in general I am seeing multi families in decent shape in the 100-150k range with estimated rents seeming to be 800-850 per unit for 2 or 3 unit properties.

Would love to connect with investors or professionals with knowledge of this area to discuss!

Thanks!

Chris

Providing pictures below. Looking at bank owned property to rehab and live in for at least a few years. Roughly 3750 sqft built in 97. While everything looks relatively newer, we are noticing black patches, streaks, and circles the size of a fist. They are more spaced out and not tiny circle clusters like most pictures of black mold show. Looking at these pictures and description, could someone take a guess as to what this is? We hope it's just ghosting from the air, humidity, and or lack of insulation. However, it's a bank owned property and know they have been known to cover stuff up and sell as is with no disclosure so want to try to place it safe. Understand best bet is to get a professional opinion, but want to see what others best guess is from the pictures.

Need some advise on whether or not to buy this bank owned property. Biggest X factor is when we did our walkthrough, we noticed basement ( unfinished) is totally flooded with sitting water ( too high to walk through) and it seems like the water has been sitting there for months.

Further details on the gameplan : Although to date we own 2 rental properties and have done 1 flip, we want to do a house hack/ renovation for our own primary residence to live in, build equity + possibly sell 5-10 years down the road. Currently we live in an existing property we own and have not put on the market yet but will be selling this in the near future. We found a bank owned home very much below market price listed at 350k, ARV comps going for at least 500k, think this one would be closer to 550k all finished. Main problem is, there is what looks like 1-2 feet of still dark water sitting in the basement ( completely concrete unfinished basement no drywall or flooring). Our hypothesis is bank turned the power off months ago, sump pump stopped running, water from heavy rains we have been getting has just been building and sitting over time, possibly 1-2 months. This is the biggest question mark for us that could sour the deal, so far we are budgeting 50k for this issue alone.

The rest of the renovations are all manageable for us- New kitchen, new heating system ( ductwork all done), flooring and paint, among other items.

As expected, the bank has already said it's selling as is and don't seem to want to do anything at all. However, I made the argument to listing agent that they should want to spend the money at the very least to simply drain the basement water out since it's still an asset that is slowly deteriorating and losing value every day that the water sits there and investors/buyers will not want to take a risk on a property with a question mark like that. Having a mold inspector come this weekend but he already admitted that until they get all the water drained, they won't be able to fully realize the damage. I noticed there are multiple doors that do not close properly without jamming including the front door which hopefully is not due to foundation shifting, our contractor said its more than likely just a build up of moisture filling up inside and all the wood expanding and warping. Any thoughts on how we should approach this issue?

2nd piece is the house hack...We think best course of action would be to have an investor friend we know buy the house in cash, once we are done with renovations, we then take out a full mortgage on the house to cover whatever he paid for it and then pay him back with some interest. Would this be feasible? One lender agent said we can do a convention rehab loan Homestyle but I think this will be a hard sell for the bank as they will most likely want cash.

Any advice, input, guidance appreciated!! We can provide pictures if wanted as well.

Thanks

Chris

Need some advise/guidance. Our situation is two fold and is as follows...

Although to date we own 2 rental properties and have done 1 flip, we want to do a house hack/ renovation for our own primary residence to live in, build equity + possibly sell 5-10 years down the road. Currently we live in an existing property we own and have not put on the market yet but will be selling this in the near future. We found a bank owned home very much below market price listed at 350k, ARV comps going for at least 500k, think this one would be closer to 550k all finished. Main problem is, there is what looks like 1-2 feet of still dark water sitting in the basement ( completely concrete unfinished basement no drywall or flooring). Our hypothesis is bank turned the power off months ago, sump pump stopped running, water from heavy rains we have been getting has just been building and sitting over time, possibly 1-2 months. This is the biggest question mark for us that could sour the deal, so far we are budgeting 50k for this issue alone.

The rest of the renovations are all manageable for us-  New kitchen, new heating system ( ductwork all done), flooring and paint, among other items.

As expected, the bank has already said it's selling as is and don't seem to want to do anything at all. However, I made the argument to listing agent that they should want to spend the money at the very least to simply drain the basement water out since it's still an asset that is slowly deteriorating and losing value every day that the water sits there and investors/buyers will not want to take a risk on a property with a question mark like that. Having a mold inspector come this weekend but he already admitted that until they get all the water drained, they won't be able to fully realize the damage. I noticed there are multiple doors that do not close properly without jamming including the front door which hopefully is not due to foundation shifting, our contractor said its more than likely just a build up of moisture filling up inside and all the wood expanding and warping. Any thoughts on how we should approach this issue?

2nd piece is the house hack...We think best course of action would be to have an investor friend we know buy the house in cash, once we are done with renovations, we then take out a full mortgage on the house to cover whatever he paid for it and then pay him back with some interest. Would this be feasible? One lender agent said we can do a convention rehab loan Homestyle but I think this will be a hard sell for the bank as they will most likely want cash.

Any advice, input, guidance appreciated!! We can provide pictures if wanted as well.

Thanks

Chris

Currently own 3 rental properties in Philadelphia with success and have been considering with a partner buying beachfront condo(s) in Atlantic City. Looking for anyone with direct experience in this market or local insight. Although the public sentiment still seems to be gloomy on Atlantic City with new casinos popping up all over NJ and PA, we think there is and will continue to be a large enough volume of visiting beach/casino goers and local job base to support AC surviving. This begs the question of whether it's more profitable to do long term rental leases or short term vacation rentals or even an Airbnb setup for these properties. The main reasoning here of course is the still very depressed prices offering high potential for return. It seems that while AC got hit hard post 2008-2009, prices haven't really recovered much. We see condos under 100k, one particular older building has multiple beach condos below 60k in proximity to casino. The main concerns are high relative NJ taxes and HOA fees. Generally speaking, we see about 4-5k annual taxes, 300-400k HOA fees on 500sqft condos. However, with alot of the HOAs covering utilities with insursnce included and the fact that at these prices we would likely pay all cash going in, at monthly costs of about $750, we should be able to justify rents over $1000 and even higher numbers with short term rentals. Although I'm not sure if flood insurance would be covered in HOA fees. Probably the biggest concern is liquidity down the road since currently some of these buildings we see 10+ condos sitting on the market at a time for months/years. With constant hurricane threats, it must take a hit to HOA assessments and and fees. Finally, lowest on the totem pole but still a consideration nonetheless is the fact that it's a property we could possibly enjoy ourselves for a few weeks out of the year. Overall, assuming there is enough demand to meet these numbers and we can buy at these still very depressed prices, it seems like it would be a low floor and low maintenance investment, generate moderate returns for the next 5-10 years, and have very high potential ceiling in the event the area experiences a comeback which many special interests are already working towards. Personally I don't think AC is ever going to be what it once was simply because of the monopoloy it once had on the casino demand. However, it's still the closest thing to "Vegas" on the east and seems to be pivoting towards an event/vacation driven economy. iE hosting concerts, conventions, sports tournaments, amateur fights, ect. What are we missing here? Thoughts, concerns, local expertise?

Need help! Pictures below - Have a 3 story row house in Philadelphia, 950 sqft, under contract and have 10 days on inspection contingency. Just had inspection and the home inspector actually cut it short to sound the alarm bells and said the front brick seems to be bulging out and this could be a major structural issue and that i should get the opinion of a brick/stone mason. The liability he said could be the front brick wall falling on someone and would need to be addressed immediately. He also thought I should skip the structural engineer part since they will just tell me the same thing and go right to stone/brick masons for details on what I am dealing with. Now from my view, it all seems plumb to me, but I am obviously no expert. Only part that seems bulging a bit is the bottom left portion maybe 30 brick section bulging forward a bit. However, there is a hole in old left bottom wood window sill, and looking in the hole you can clearly see that the outer layer of front brick on lower left section ( front has 3 layers of brick) is peeling forward and separated from inner layer by at least 4 inches. Looks like they have newspaper material in the gap as well.

Now later that day - Had a brick mason contractor come by who said hes done hundreds of brick fronts mostly for store fronts and he didn't seem to think it was as big of a deal. He said the left bottom portion appears to be cracked up and bulging and he could brace and fix specifically that portion that for 5k, or repoint the entire thing for 15k, but he didnt seem to think it was some huge liability that needs to be addressed day one the same way that the inspector did. 

The details, its built in 1925. The front of building is 3 layered brick front. On bottom of front, it has a brownstone material which looks like holds the brick up. It has one star bolt above the first floor windows so assuming its going into the 2nd floor joists. Again, the large hole from rotted wood on one of the bottom windows, and i can look in the hole and see that the outer layer of the brick wall is separated by at least 4-5 inches from the second layer of brick at least on the lower left side of the front. 

What I am thinking is that I have to speak to a structural engineer to tell me exactly what kind of liability I am looking even though inspector said to skip that step. Question I think I need answered from struc engineer is what is the liability here? Is this something that needs to be done day 1 otherwise it can fall and kill someone, or can I wait a year or two to get this done with a tenant in place since the wall has been there for like 100 years?

Appreciate all the valuable info, will reppost with updates.

Thanks