All Forum Posts by: Eric D.

interesting there are completely different responses when it is possible there is one mathematically right answer 

I have three 30 year mortgages:

My home: 4.125% with 450k owed

Investment Prop #1: 4.675% with 325k owed

Investment Prop #2: 5.25% with 309k owed

I can start paying down principal but should I pay off my home or investment property 2 first? The interest rate on number 2 is higher, but it’s also tax deductible. Advice? 

Where should I look for a buy and hold rental?

I just bought my first buy and hold rental property off the MLS in Maplewood, NJ - a two-family. It was a flip that had been foreclosed and then fixed up. I bought it with 25% down with a 30 year mortgage at 4.7%. I also put an additional 20k into it. I easily got tenants and should make a good cash flow each month of over 1k.

Question is: are there better places to buy from than the MLS? I want to buy another property with bank financing once again, and I am not a DIY guy, so that rules out foreclosures where one pays cash sight unseen. However, a lot of inventory on the MLS is overpriced in the competitive NJ market. Should I be looking elsewhere, and if so, where? I am such a newbie that I do not know of other "venues" to buy from

Question - can one get bank financing (i.e. a 30 year mortgage) for a property purchased from a wholesaler (or a short sale, for that matter), if the property is in decent shape and in a good area? Or, in order to get traditional financing, must one buy off the MLS?

I am a newbie interested in buying a two-family home to "buy and hold" and use as a rental property. I live in North Jersey and would want to stay in that general area. But this is a very tough area to make it work, right outside of Manhattan, with high prices and high taxes. Even properties in bad shape make it onto the MLS and are asking for a lot of money - and get it.

Question:

Where should I look to buy? The MLS, short sales, foreclosures, wholesalers?

I have looked at MLS properties but there are no good deals. I know nothing about buying foreclosures or short sales and have not come across wholesale ads. I am kind of at a loss at what to do.

Any help would be appreciated! 

I am seeking names for a reputable wholesaler in NNJ/CNJ. Thanks!

I thought this would be an interesting exercise - if you were starting from scratch and had $200k in cash to apply to real estate investments in New Jersey, what would you do? I thought it'd be helpful for all of us to see one another's perspective on the market.

As for me, I would probably invest in an up and coming area near public transportation to NYC, putting just enough down so I can get a decent cash flow month-to-month. In NJ, I think that would end up being 30-50% down.

What would you do?

I looked at the Sheriff Sale and, in many cases, the upset price is well above market value. Granted, I do not know anything about foreclosures, and so maybe I am misinterpreting the significance of that. But still...

First-time investor here, thinking of buying a condo in Newark to rent out. I am contemplating the area around the Broad Street Station and University Heights or a little more east near the waterfront. What are people's thoughts of this area? Or other areas in Newark for someone like myself? I honed in on this area because it is near the train, a Whole Foods is in development .... 

I do not want to have to rehab a house, which I have no experience, or get myself in over my head. I want to start off nice and easy with a low maintenance condo that I can buy and hold as a rental property. I was thinking of teaming up with a realtor, basically using the MLS.

Any insights appreciated! Thanks! 

I appreciate the responses. I take from them that one has to actually enter into the real estate biz in order to understand how it works and to profit from it. However, they also seem to reinforce my original post that the dynamics for real estate investing are very difficult in NNJ and CNJ. There were no replies that said, this is what I do: I have to buy multi-families to make money, and they have to be in disrepair for me to get a good deal, and I buy them with ___% down and then I fix them up and rent them out. Or I buy single family homes in this type of area, I never do more than $$$ work, and I rent them out....

It seems that I was correct that the dynamics in NNJ and CNJ make this too difficult, unless you buy in a really distressed area and then take the chance that renters will not harm the property and will pay rent. Yeah, the rents are higher here, but I do not think it translates into a better price-rent dynamic, because taxes and prices are so damn high. 

Am I wrong here? 

What is your strategy? How do YOU make this work? 

I think there are formulas to use in other parts of the country, but I am not sure that is the case here.

I may not always make $ on the stock market, as someone pointed out, but annual returns are on average about 8% or so over the long term, and I do not have to hire lawyers and contractors and go to court for nonpayment of rent and get 3 a.m. calls that a plumber is needed.