All Forum Posts by: Erica S.

Hola Bigger Pockets! My (now husband) and I have been kicking around the idea of investing in real estate for the past year or so. We currently rent in Boston (annoyingly high rent but great location in the North End), and have previously considered buying rental properties / owner-occupied properties in the south shore and central MA areas. However, after a recent trip to Puerto Rico, we're really drawn to the idea of investing in a vacation home in San Juan.

Pros: properties are affordable there (especially compared to MA), easy direct flights from Boston, great tourist destination (so there's a possibility to rent through AirBnB for supplemental income), tax advantages if we ever move there full time, etc.

Cons: PR's default (could result in higher taxes), high unemployment rate, locals leaving the island en masse, etc. (though, to be honest, most of these problems are less concerning since we're not looking to rent the property out full time)

Basically just looking to pick the brains of the experts on this forum (and if there's anyone who specializes in Puerto Rican real estate please reach out directly!)

Thanks!
Erica

@John McConnell Totally agree. The Chelsea / East Boston area is another one that keeps showing up on the list of "up and coming" areas in Boston (along with Dorchester), but it's a tough sell when realistically there are only a few areas within those neighborhoods I'd consider living - it would be great if we had the capital to buy an investment property there (and not rely on an FHA loan/minimal down payment), but that's just not in the cards

Thank you all for the feedback!

@Patrick Gleason  great points - my brother went to Providence College so I'm somewhat familiar with the area (at least around the school) and there are a lot of young professionals there (aka renters I can relate to with hopefully reliable income) now that the mob has improved the city so much ;) we haven't looked into the area specifically though so I definitely will - hopefully the numbers look a little better. Would you also mind explaining how buying  a condo could set us back?

@Dave Foster / @Marc Dupuis I work in corporate lending so I totally get the concept of depreciation for tax purposes, but I didn't know using an FHA loan would preclude us from eventually rolling over those gains into a future investment (that's what you mean by 1031 right?). The plan for now is to do owner occupied (at least for the first few years, or whatever the terms of the loan would be), so if we eventually move out and that owner occupied becomes a straight investment / income property, would we then be allowed to use a 1031 exchange? 

Hi all,

My fiancé and I currently live (rent) in the North End neighborhood of Boston, and while we love the location and convenience, we're both sick of forking over 1/3 of our income each month in rent. I've been doing research over the past 6 or so months and know for sure I want our first property to be an investment. I've found a lot of great info on biggerpockets so I figured I would ask you all directly to please help me! :)

Boston and the neighboring towns seems to be one of those areas that (from what I've seen) simply never meets the 1 or 2% rules. So we're ultimately looking for something that will cut down our monthly costs (either through lower cost of living or supplemental / rental income).

Option 1: Purchase two or three family owner-occupied home. By doing owner-occupied we'd get to take advantage of the lower down payment which is great. But in this scenario in towns like Quincy (or first choice) or Dorchester/Eastie etc., my model shows us not cash-flowing at all (we'd still need to put in ~$1000 per month, which is much better than what we pay in rent currently, but still). So big question here is: long term, is it worth getting a multi-family that won't cash flow as owner occupied, but has the potential to do so once we're renting out all units? 

Option 2: Purchase a (much-less-expensive-than-a-multi-family) condo in an up and coming area like Quincy, save a buttload on rent, use those savings as capital for our next real estate investment (or get a line of credit based on our equity in the condo), then rent the unit out when we move onto bigger and better things. Positive here is that the condos in this market are (for the most part) all updated and would bring in higher rent whenever we move out, versus the multi-families on the market which would likely need to be updated (at very least cosmetically) before we could get the same rent prices.

Since this turned into a long-winded and very specific question/prompt, any insight/advice you all have specific to the Boston/South Shore markets would be much appreciated!

Erica