All Forum Posts by: David DuCille

Spanish Harlem is going to be a helluva lot cheaper to invest in than the area around atlantic avenue in brooklyn (awesome area to invest in, I'm very familiar with it.  I used to ride my bike all over the city so I know most areas pretty well.)   If your establisthed enough that you are doing commercial deals in manhattan, Spanish Harlem may be too small potatoes for you but I think it has the potential to be a bit like what williamsburg and greenpoint were 20-30 years ago.  Everyone is getting priced out of manhattan but everyone still wants to be there.  Spanish harlem is logical because as I previously mentioned you have the 6 train that can get you all the way downtown.  also there is a lot of development happening there already.  They built the East River plaza a few years back and it had a few growing pains because the economy tanked in 08 but now it's doing great.  Peoiple come from all over the upper east and west sides because there is Target and Costco there.  IT's bringing a lot of foot traffic to the area and more and more residential buildings are being redeveloped.  Its so much more affordable.  I had a nicely updated apt on 114th btw 1st and pleasant avenues 4 doors down from Rao's.  Apt was a 2 bd 800 sq ft with private backyard and rent was 2400 a month.  The same apt would have been 4k if i was 30 blocks south.  

If your reading this and your not from NYC or have never been there, yes, you read those numbers right!

hope those last post made sense in the car using voice to text

Spanish Harlem and South Bronx you can get all the way to Wall Street on one train without having to transfer that's huge opportunities in my opinion my last apartment was on 114th between first and pleasant right near that newer shopping center I absolutely loved it it was still very neighborhood E and a couple of great local restaurants and shops if not for my fiance's opportunity to keep her in New York base salary and move to Tampa Florida we would still be living there

it's a lot like Brooklyn and those other neighborhoods in Manhattan but not quite as developed I imagine there's probably still some decent opportunities and Long Island City and Sunnyside but it's really all about having close proximity to Manhattan so people can get to work

I just moved out of NYC but if I were going to invest there, I'd be looking hard at Spanish Harlem.  Seems like Brooklyn, alphabet city, etc are already saturated.  Spanish Harlem and the South Bronx are the next logical areas to go.

in my market here in Tampa, FL, there just isn't a lot of inventory for starters. Add to that that investors have already been buying the great deals for the past 2-3 years. REO's were hitting the market that were essentially great houses in near perfect condition and selling for 100k . Now the same 3/2/2 is in need of major work and listed at 150k and some of them are still selling for that price. Man how I wish I was in the biz and had the money 3 years ago. Some people are going to make out REALLY WELL in the Tampa market. Rents are super duper strong here too so they can get TONS of cashflow and appreciation over the coming years.

 I agree with this.  I don't have tremendous fear of getting sued.  You can sue for anything in this damn country, but the question is, can you really win and what can you really get out of me.  I am very personal to my existing tenants.  In part it lets them see the human side and know that I'm just like them.  I am also VERY direct and clear with them.  They wouldn't want me walking into their place of business disrupting how they earn their living and I expect they will not do the same with me.  They understand there is a ZERO tolerance policy for any sort of sob story because regardless of how legit of an issue they could encounter that renders them unable to pay the rent, there will be no other choice but for me to handle it as a business transaction because their emergencies do not mean a crisis on my part.  So far so good, zero issues with my tenants.  As I acquire more property and grow, I'm sure I will change from this strategy somewhat.

 po box

i'm a little confused on the 4plex math here. Finding it hard to believe you couldnt find a way to make that math work. Hell, it might mean you rent out 3 units and a bedroom in the unit you live in but I just don't see how you can't make it cash flow or at least be pretty damn close to it. if you only put 3.5% down then yeah, maybe you won't cash flow but your only putting 30k of the 100k that you have to spend. Because of the high PMI costs associated with FHA loans and the fact that its for the life of the loan, I wouldn't go FHA, I'd go conventional and bump the downpayment up to 5%. Remember that even if you aren't cashflowing, every month you are paying down that principal so it's still like you are paying into a bank account. I wish I knew more about the san diego market but the other option is buying something super beat up and fix it up to force appreciation as well as command higher rents. the only problem is that 203k loans are a pain in the *** so if it won't qualify for conventional financing.

Last option.  IF you are only paying $300 a month rent now, why not stay living where you are living and buy the 4 plex and rent all 4 units?  surely that would cash flow?

As a newbie, I look at both.  I moved to a new area for my fiancees job and left my old career behind and needed to start over.  Fortunately she makes enough to support both of us and give me an opportunity to start a new career in real estate.  Our first 2 investments were to get cash flow to help bridge the gap of the income that I wasn't making.  But we also knew that I wouldn't be not making money forever and we wanted investments that had the chance to appreciate and really let us grow our wealth so that we don't have to be stressed about things like "how are we going to put kids through college"