All Forum Posts by: Clark Kirkpatrick

Quote from @Erich Snyder:

My wife and I are currently looking a potential deal on a duplex in Pottstown, PA as our first ever investment property. My question pertains to the the borough's requirement for the landlord to be a resident of the borough OR have a "designated responsible agent" that resides in the  borough.  We live about 30 minutes away from Pottstown in near-by Chester County so it is not as though we are out-of-state investor's.  Is there anyway around this besides hiring a property that is local to Pottstown? TIA

 Last I saw, I thought their requirements was to have someone within some distance (20 mi?) from Pottstown. Are you sure they’re required to be in the borough?

Quote from @Caleb Stevens:

Quote from @Clark Kirkpatrick:

Pottstown is up and coming, though not as beautiful as Cape Town! 

Hi @Clark Kirkpatrick, can you explain as to why Pottstown is up-and-coming? I currently have a rental unit in the area and looking to purchase more, but just curious why YOU personally believe Pottstown is continuing to move up?

Thank you!

There are lots of new restaurants, stores and industrial businesses in town. Houses that sat vacant for years are being rehabbed and sold or rented. People are coming to town on Friday and Saturday nights to go out on the town, which didn’t happen 5 years ago. Rents and prices are up. All the normal signs. 

Pottstown is up and coming, though not as beautiful as Cape Town!

If you still need someone for this, I've used a few service providers before in Pottstown that did a good job. Let me know, I'd be happy to share

@Scott Seydor I've been in dozens of Pottstown rentals and never seen a certificate like that passage describes. The inspectors don't look for that, and they come through at least every 2 years, so I wouldn't worry about that bit.  

For your home address, most people do put their actual home address, and other people feel that it's overreach on the part of the borough. The legal way to avoid providing your home address is to put title to the property in a land trust, which precludes anyone from demanding to know the beneficiary's identification without a court order. Other people who have a PO box just put the physical address of their post office, and then say "suite 57" or whatever the PO box number is. 

I do!

What info are you looking for?

This looks like a great deal! Glad to see another investor fixing up a cool old Pottstown property!

@Eric Dietrich There are some rougher areas of Coatesville, but overall it's coming up and it's mostly C class and higher. There are nice new developments in the town, as well as the older housing stock that has been getting rehabbed over the past 5+ years. I live in Pottstown, and we have tons of rehabs happening, although it always takes time to take a run-down town and make it nice again. Both Pottstown and Coatesville were steel towns, and had a couple bad decades after that heavy industry was mostly off-shored. They're coming back in a serious way, but it's a process to get there.

Looks like a good deal! Good to see other new investors getting into Pottstown. We're making this town great one rehab at a time!

@Hannah Costello I have a property exactly like this in Pottstown. What @Dan Powers said is spot on. In my case, they denied me primarily because I didn't have at least 2 off-street parking spots per unit (4 total, in this case), and although there is a 2-car at the property, they wouldn't even count that, leaving me with 0 off-street parking spots in their eyes.

They had some other reasons as well, but off-street parking seems to be a favorite of municipalities around here to quickly DQ such a request. My property is now a single family home, with 2 kitchens, 2 tenants on 2 leases, and if one of them moves out then I can't re-rent that unit separately.