All Forum Posts by: Eric A.

Currently seeking equity partners for a fairly large deal in Queens, NYC (60+ residential units). Please PM me for details if interested. Serious inquiries only from qualified large investors please, thanks.

Just like the title says, I'm looking for an experienced commercial RE broker based in Queens NY for help with a possible deal that recently was brought to my attention in the LIC area. Thanks.

Jean Lee can you share what some of those hot areas are? I'm considering buying a vacation home for my own family but I want to be somewhere that has stuff going on, a decent restaurant / shopping scene nearby and plenty of opportunities for activities and meeting like-minded young urban families. Thanks. Something like the Catskills/Hudson valley are in upstate NY but cheaper lol.

This is a great idea. Wish I had a property in Brooklyn!!

In places like NY and California it is most definitely an investment. I know people who bought condos in Brooklyn back in 2010 and made $600-$700k in appreciation. They then recently rolled that equity into a $2mm 3-family brownstone and now have 4 units under their belt grossing well north of $12k in rental income per month. And oh by the way, in the long run those properties will keep appreciating and rents will keep going up much faster than inflation.

I asked this same question about a year ago. Replies were all over the map. I came to the conclusion that in a high priced market like NYC you are better off owning your primary residence because it is an appreciating asset with tax benefits. Not only that, but home ownership here prevents you from being a victim of rising rents. I recently moved from a very expensive area in Brooklyn where I had been renting, and I bought a co-op in queens at 1/3 the price of what a similar apartment would go for in Brooklyn. It probably slows down my ability to buy a pure investment property, but it gets me out of flushing thousands of dollars down the toilet each month and gets me into an appreciating asset, and it helps me save more than $1,000 in disposable income each month (not even including principal paydown). In NYC, I'd say the only time it makes sense to stay renting your residence is if you have a below-market apartment with rent control or something similar. Then you can feel good about continuing to rent, and investing in multis in less desirable neighborhoods. Just my 2 cents.

Samir Shahani I must not have been very clear in my post. I'm not saying a lack of checks and balances in government will lead to some kind of simplistic doom. This was not meant to be political in any way. It's very well documented that the current administration and congress are focused on massive fiscal stimulus via aggressively lower corporate and personal taxes, infrastructure investment, and general deregulation, but bank deregulation in particular. In addition to this, the federal reserve has been telegraphing their desire to start reducing their massive $4.5 trillion balance sheet assets of treasury bonds and mortgage backed securities as soon as this year. All of these things are massively inflationary and point to higher rates and a steeper yield curve. Higher rates tend to affect impact people's ability to service debt and therefore pay high prices for housing. Just wondering how people are thinking about these things as it pertains to REI.

Jeff B. It wasn't meant to be political. I work on Wall Street. That's what everyone is calling it, love him or hate him.

Russell Brazil obviously prices go up. But does inflation explain the median down payment being 10% and leverage ratios being stretched?

Article on Market-Watch: https://www-marketwatch-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/E5127276-1A17-11E7-8755-9AB7B5C1C318 Spoiler alert: - According to the mortgage bankers association, the average size of a home loan is at the largest in the history of the survey, which goes back to 1990. - Larger mortgages reflect not just more expensive home prices, but also more leveraged ones. - The 20% down payment is a relic. The median down payment in 2016 was 10%. For first time homebuyers, it was 6%. - First timers and other buyers of less expensive homes are now more levered than they were at the height of the housing bubble a decade ago. - Back in 1990, the median mortgage was 3.3x the median annual income; it's now more than 5x Housing definitely frothy these days. And it definitely has to do with the recent period of persistently ultra-low interest rates fueling asset valuations to reach all-time highs everywhere. Anybody concerned that the impending "Trumplation" trifecta of fiscal stimulus (lower taxes, $1trn infrastructure spending, bank deregulation) will push interest rates higher very quickly, and push housing over a cliff?