All Forum Posts by: Ian Andrews

Hi @Arjay Vergara.  Wow!  Nice work.  Sounds like I’m at about the place you were at back in 2015 or so.  I’ve been trying to lean everything I can, read several books on real estate investing etc.  looking now in the philly area and surrounding suburbs.  I think one thing that is definitely lacking is estimating rehab costs.  Next thing to learn I suppose :-).  Although I know very little yet, I thought that was a pretty great looking turn around for only $14k.  Wondering if you had any suggestions on learning in this area.  Also was wondering if you had any kind of breakdown of those costs?  Great job again!

@Account Closed I saw this article too a little while ago.  I don't recall what it was prior to July 1st, but even at 3.89% it costs me a pretty decent chunk of cash each month.  I actually do think it could be possible, depending on the taxes in the area I move, that, like @Sandra B stated, a car might be cheaper than the tax, haha.

@Sandra B. @John Knisely thank you Sandra for the detailed advice.  To answer your initial question as to why I wasn't working with a realtor; there are two main reasons.  The first was that I didn't really know that I should be doing this, I kind of assumed it was a bit of a DIY situation at the outset.  But judging from both your and John's replies it sounds as if I would benefit greatly from working with one.  The second is that I just don't know any, but with all the helpful folks that pop up on the site here I feel like that will be an easily solved problem.  On an unrelated note I hope you are loving Southern California.  I loved there for about 11 years, San Diego (la jolla area) and Los Angeles (Westwood).  I loved every minute of it.  

John, thank you for the info regarding what an agent could do for me.  Didn't know I was missing out on that level of detail.

Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to post responses to my questions.  I'm really impressed with how helpful and supportive a community exists on this site from the Philly area.  I've been looking around in some of the neighborhoods suggested by several of you and I had a follow up question regarding how to do so.  I've been looking at properties through websites like zillow, realtor.com, trulia, etc.  My skills are not very refined at this point so the search typically involves something along the lines of typing "duplex name of town" into google and checking out what comes up. I have seen some posts where people describe having MLS feeds set up to provide them with notifications. I know some of the aformentiones sites (trulia for example) have notifications available, but I was wondering it there is something else I should be doing. Do the big sites like zillow etc. offer a good enough representation of what is available or will a lot of potential properties get missed when relying on these? Is there some other, more thorough service available that I should be using? Thanks everyone!

@Kevin H.  I think you have a pretty good point.  It has been fairly challenging to find something that is fitting all of the criteria I laid out.  I am flexible though.  If I find a great deal, but it will require me to get a car, that's fine, I can do that.  The numbers just have to be good enough to make up for the additional monthly expenses.  I'm also in a position to spend more if it still makes financial sense.  I put an upper limit on the price range more because it's my first home and wanted to make sure that if I made any mistakes that they weren't huge mistakes (maybe the property needs more work than anticipated, stays vacant for a while, etc. etc.).  But 300-350 would still be doable, just had to be a no brained great deal for me to jump in that deep.  Thanks for the input Kevin.  Ugh appreciated.

@John Knisely  I'm glad you mentioned the transportation options.  That is a big consideration for me at the moment.  My goal for this first real estate purchase is really to reduce my housing/living expenses as much as I can.  Currently I live in center city and am able to commute to work via public transportation.  I hop on the subway two blocks from my apartment and take it all the way to 69th street.  From there I get on the norristown high speed line which drops me off about a half mile from work where my employer runs a shuttle to the site.  It's fantastic, my total transportation expenses  in any given month is $96 (Septa trans pass).  The first $30 is subsidized by my employer bringing the cost down to $66, which I can then pay with pre-tax dollars.  Compared to owning and operating a car it's ridiculously cheap.  This is why I would ideally like to stay very close to something like the norristown high speed line so that I could continue this.  I believe I will be able to do something similar when my job moves to phoenixville as I think my employer is going to run a shuttle from one of the stops out to the site.  This is tough because it limits my options significantly.  I am open to getting a car again, but then the added cost will dig into the saving I am making with the house hack and if I'm not saving a significant amount of money compared to my living/commuting expenses I pay now then I would just stay in the city.   Just an additional consideration for me.  To address your other comment I have definitely considered a single family home and renting the rooms.  I' not closed to this idea at all, but the multi unit approach has the added benefit of privacy so I've been thinking about taking that approach.

Hi there Richard, Alfred, and John.  Thanks for chiming in.  Some great discussion here.  I was really surprised to see the over 6% figure for the Upper Darby/Drexel Hill tax rate.  That would obviously make a huge difference!  I'm going to throw out a real novice level follow up question and ask how you typically determine your tax rate estimates.  I had been using a website with an estimator tool that was obviously way off!!  With the taxes offset that really would change my initial aversions to  Manayunk.  My job will be moving from king of Prussia to phoenixville next summer which won't be great in terms of a commute, but it wouldn't be impossible I suppose.  Any experience with neighborhoods a little further outside the city, Anywhere between Philadelphia and phoenixville?  Thanks again for all the responses.  Really helpful.

Thank you to everyone who has provided some suggestions thus far.  I apologize for the tardiness of my reply, but I was traveling out of the country for a bit and had limited internet access.  Anyone have any experience in the Drexel Hill area?  I was curious about this neighborhood, but some of the crime statistics I found online caused me a bit of concern.  I think the Manayunk/Roxborough area makes sense in terms of an area I would be happy to move to.  Only downside is moving out of center city, yet still getting hit with the Philadelphia wage tax.  

Hi everybody,

I'm brand new on the site and to real estate.  I was hoping to tap into some of the knowledge that some of the other members on the site may have about the Philadelphia area.  A little about myself;  I've been in Philadelphia for the last three years.  My original game plan was to do as most do and save up for a while then buy as much home as I could based on my savings and salary.  It didn't take me too long to realize that buying a home just to buy a home was NOT necessarily a sound investment and was likely a huge liability.  I started reading a few books and some posts on this site.  I have been rethinking my strategy significantly and have begun to consider trying to start with an owner occupied multifamily home.  Living in center city I feel like this poses some challenges in terms of cost so I will likely have to move outside of the city (although if anyone has any experience with this in center city I would love to hear about it).  I commute out to King of Prussia for work which allows me to take public transportation (Norristown high speed line) and to not require a car (*sidenote: if anybody is looking for other ways to cut down on expenses to pocket more of their earnings for saving and investing, figuring out how to live without a car is fantastic!  I've become quite accustomed to it and it saves cash every month).  I was thinking that if I could find a place close enough to public transportation, I could cut down on my living expenses utilizing the aforementioned owner occupied multifamily home strategy, while maintaining low transportation costs.  This poses a bit of a challenge for me in terms of where to focus.  Having lived in center city my entire time in Philly, I don't know the surrounding areas particularly well.  Additionally, the Norristown high speed line is fairly long so there are lots of neighborhoods/communities.  I figure that without an area to focus on and start learning the market in I'm just spinning my gears.  Does anyone have any experience with neighborhoods that lie along the Norristown high speed line (aka route 100)?  Specifically, if there are good neighborhoods to focus on for this type of home?  Looking for something probably in the 100 - 250K range (I know the range is huge, but if the deal is right....), but that is also in a nice enough area that I would want to live.  Sorry if this is too broad a question, I know nobody can decide for me what neighborhood to focus on, but I figure with all of the experience on the site I might be able to get a lot of information rather efficiently.  Thanks in advance for any responses and advice.  I look forward to talking with some other members about this topic.