All Forum Posts by: Jason Lee

Are you sure you're looking at condos, and not co-ops? $1500 HOA on a $300K purchase price sounds like a co-op maintenance fee which includes the co-ops underlying mortgage interest and real estate taxes. Many aggregator sites lump the two forms of ownership together since co-ops aren't that common throughout the US. Keep in mind most co-ops don't allow investors to begin with. If these are condos you're looking at then the HOA is ridiculously high and I'd be concerned with how the HOA is run. In NYC you'll find a $1500 HOA on a $1.5M two bedroom condo. You'll rarely find a sub $500K condo in Manhattan but you can find one sub $600K with an HOA around $350 and you won't need a property manager.

If you have a house or multi-family there's no HOA fee but you still have expenses that will never go away (lawn care, snow removal, trash, utilities for common areas, super/property management, and capex).

I have many investor clients that only own condos in NYC and/or JC. They were either originally owner occupied at one point or purchased all-cash as investments. Yes, you can look elsewhere for lower expenses and higher cash flow, but my clients like condos around here because they are easy. A and B+ class properties with A and B+ class tenants. I vet the tenants, and handle any repairs and turnover, so there is no property management. Most of my condo clients are OOS and some are out of the country (and have never even seen the condos in person). 

The sales market is pretty hot with a record number of contracts signed each week. Inventory is down, even taking into account the seasonal slow down and so things look like they will remain hot for at least the rest of the summer. Despite the volume it doesn't look like median prices are increasing. Things look flat and we're still below the peak. If you hang onto it I wouldn't expect much appreciation anytime soon. Does your building allow subletting from day one or open subletting after a certain period. If it's day one then it will add a premium for being open to investors, unless the concentration of investors is too high and the building isn't warrantable... then that would hurt you. $900 month from 500K equity doesn't sound great. You can do better. Not sure what you mean by taxed differently... So you owner occupied for at least 2 years within the past 5 years?  Then yes, you'll want to 1031 into something higher performing.

The rental market has improved dramatically and is getting better every day. It seems like E Village will be back to pre-covid rates soon. If you were in Midtown or Fidi then maybe I'd worry about vacancy and rents but I think you'll be fine if you keep it as a rental.

The market is pretty hot right now but units that need more work are typically taking longer to get into contract and more negotiable. Bridge traffic can be a big turnoff around there depending on the exact location. With any family size unit I would also take into account the school zoning.

My kids have gone to school in Hell's Kitchen and we have friends' kids on Broadway and so know the drill. You have teens and you could be empty nesters in the next five years. That'll go by quick. Unless you know you want to stick around longer, I would continue to rent. Five years is a pretty short time horizon for an equity play. I don't know where the data above came from but 2017 was the peak in Manhattan. The median sales price is down about 10% from there. The sales market is pretty hot now, not that much inventory, lots of buyers, but prices are still flat. Meanwhile the rental market is still very soft and you can get a great deal. Resale inventory has always been a bit thin in Hell's Kitchen. You don't have that many big co-ops or older condos... it's mostly smaller walk-up co-ops or new dev so it's pretty limiting to begin with. If you were open to other neighborhoods and a longer time line then yeah I could see you pulling the trigger on an apartment you really like. If you're on the fence then I would lean towards renting.

The market is somewhat neutral. My data doesn't break out townhouses and condos and without looking closer I would say the condo market is skewing more towards sellers. Median prices have been down YOY the past few months (-11 to 14%) and inventory has been going up, but sales volume is also up, days on market is down, and average discount off asking has been around 2%. So lots of transactions happening and sellers are getting pretty close to full asking even though the median is down (but probably pulled down by 1-3 family rental properties). 

Look up division of licensing services / Request for certification/certified copies of records.

It can be done but you haven't even mentioned co-op board approval which is a bit of a red flag. You don't know what you don't know and even experienced agents have board turn downs. A co-op sale is not something you want to try to wing. I'd want my hand held. You can do it on your own but you're probably going to pay tuition. Good luck!

The veil of an LLC can be pieced pretty easily and so like @Bryan Danger mentioned it's more important to have very good umbrella coverage.

Curious why you'd go through the trouble of moving in only for a few months and then rent it out? Tip for you: take photos of the unit empty before you move in so you can use those when you advertise it for rent.

@David Flores

No there hasn't been negative appreciation as of late. The median YOY for townhouses and condos was up in October, September, November, December and January. It's down for February so the YTD median is down 2%.

Number of single family homes sold was down 47.4% YOY. Townhouse and condo was up 55.3% and it's up 31.4% YTD. And yes you're right there are many many more townhouses and condos so the the number of total sales is significantly higher YOY. Not sure how you think that movement can be bad.

Please feel free to challenge these numbers. I'm not trying to skew any data or fit any storyline. This is the only data on this thread. The rest is largely opinion and anecdote.