All Forum Posts by: Dennis Walter

Hi Matt, welcome to BP!

I like your analysis/classification for the State College rental market, but I don't think I agree totally on the "real estate is cheap" when you are talking State College School District market compared to outside the State College School District in neighboring markets.

I am always "looking" at real estate investment opportunities in the State College School District, but my investing partner and I have generally found that the real estate around State College doesn't support our current strategy.  The "1%" or "2%" rules don't really work in the SCSD market in my opinion.  Maybe State College is more of a buy, rent, rehab, refinance and/or sell banking on the appreciation.  

We have generally been focused on other Central PA markets.

Glad to see your post and nice to see another local BP member!

I live in State College and the cost of downtown real estate has always baffled me.  I don't understand how they value those 4 condo units at $170k/unit.  

If you are truly interested in these units I would recommend touching base with a local real estate agent that could probably give you a good explanation of the valuation.  

I did a quick lookup on that specific Parcel ID using the Centre County Web Information Access tool and found who owns the property and what they paid.  They paid $198,000 and tax assessed value is $24,085.

Hi,

I am looking at purchasing a 5-unit property from an owner with seller financing in the state of Pennsylvania.  The building is owned free and clear.  Both the owner and I are unfamiliar with the process of being involved with an owner financed deal - it is our first time not dealing with a bank or mortgage broker.

A couple initial questions for the BP community:

1)  Best suited to get a real estate attorney or a closing company to handle the deal?  We already have mutually agreed on the terms.

2)  What do closing costs look like in this scenario?  I want to have a good idea of what the upfront costs for this process look like.  Should we agree to split any costs related to the closing process?  I assume there are taxes that come into play upfront with the sale, also?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Dennis

Liam,

I enjoyed reading your post even though it is quite dated by now.  I am new to BP and also new to Real Estate Investing.  A friend and I recently made the decision to begin our journey into real estate investing.  I live in State College and I've just recently acquired my first property with a co-investor outside of this area.  It would be very nice to catch up with you sometime to chat.  PM me if you'd like.  I hope to hear you are making progress towards your personal goals!

I was in this same boat recently.  I went with a 2006 Subaru Impreza for the AWD in the winter and the good fuel economy for $7500.  It has <100,000miles.