All Forum Posts by: JD DiGiacomandrea

I also have a multifamily in Rochester in a rough neighborhood. I have some great tenants in there, and we over improved it, but we did have drug dealers living in the abandoned house next door for 6 months. Once we got them out they moved across the road to a commercial parking lot and still hang out all day. They sell drugs in broad daylight. Through this property I have found the reason there are inexpensive houses in certain neighborhoods. 

I have also found that the repairs required are often expensive due to neglect, and the era these houses are from. Rochester has a C of O program, and a lead paint test program that are fairly strict to ensure safe housing for all tenants. This usually requires repairs that can cost a decent amount, or pop up. 

Additionally the property taxes in the city, while lower than surrounding areas, still typically run about 3% of the property value, every year. I have a $70k duplex, and I pay about $3k in property taxes each year.

All of these costs add up, and keep the property values and selling prices low. To compensate, we easily hit the 1% rule around here. I rent that duplex for $1620 total per month. $795 and $825. both 3/1 units, off street parking, and basement storage.

I am curious what you find. I went to Clarkson, but never lived off campus. Whats the market like up there?

@Jay Wu, the taxes in NY suck. There is no way around it. They are high, and cut significantly into cash flow. They are also one of the larger reasons purchase prices are lower, since the appreciation in residential in hampered by them. I'm not as familiar with commercial, but be careful, as those taxes always go up, and some years can jump fairly significantly. If you get locked in a NNN in commercial and have a surprise increase in taxes you could be stuck in a negative situation. Thats my 2c.

Shane, Out of curiosity are you interested in self storage in the Rochester Area? I've played with the idea but it seems you have done much more research and education on it. What are the factors that either encourage Rochester area self storage, or push you to the other states as you mentioned?

I knew this would be the right place to ask! This is very helpful information!

I am finishing a renovation on a property and recently learned how easy it is to replace windows. What I have found difficult is sourcing low cost replacement window. I purchased 2 of the windows I needed at the builders outlet store, and they luckily had sizes that fit. It was as simple as removing the old window, silicone caulk, screw in new window, small bit of low expansion foam, and then fussing with the trim to make it look perfect. I spent $125 on the replacement window, which was a vinyl double hung replacement style window. I am now looking for one for the bathroom, which is a small odd size, and having little luck at off the shelf options. I used two custom online calculators for windows and got prices $250-400 for the small windows. This seemed outrageous and there must be a better way.

Does anyone in the Rochester area (NY) have tips on where to source windows?

Thanks,

JD

The 14621 area has both C and D Class properties. It changes street by street, and a bit over time, depending on the neighborhood and location. This area is not for the faint of heart. There historically has been poor upkeep on these properties and most of them are quite old, near 100 years or more. There is a lot of maintenance costs associated with this old of a house, especially if it hasn't been changed to PEX plumbing and block windows for the basement yet. This neighborhood is notorious for being broken into and having the copper cut out and stolen. 

As they always say, its cheap for a reason. Don't mean to scare you, but wanted to assure you of the truth from a local.

@Shane W. Chapin I finally found your finished post here! Great job! The final result looks great, and you really did the right thing by producing a product that you are proud to stand behind. My motto is good homes for good people. You seem to share that sentiment. 

Hello! Rochester is a great place to invest, but the neighborhoods are something to learn from a local. In general A neighborhoods are easy to list: Park Ave, Upper Monroe, South Wedge, East Ave, University Ave, NOTA, to name a few. The B neighborhoods IMO are 19th Ward, Beechwood, Merchants Culver (B+/A depending). Finding that sweet spot between C and B is a hard game. If I list C neighborhoods in my opinion I'm sure others might disagree. Also it can change street by street, and over time, as there are a lot of up and coming neighborhoods. 

I just bought a duplex I thought was B/C, and it ended up having a shooting right in front of it the day after I closed. Since then it has been a challenge to evict the neighbors, who were drug dealers, and squatters I later found out. Instead of leaving the area after their absentee landlord evicted them (again after they broke back in and lived there with no utilities for the summer), they moved their operation to the abandoned property on the other side of my duplex. They would show up at 9 am everyday and bring a few chairs and just sit there all day until maybe 9 pm dealing drugs to cars coming by. Then they would leave, sleep somewhere, and show up the next day. I was friendly with them, so much so that one day I had a pile of garbage by the curb for pickup, with some metal in it. The local homeless guy walked by and started going through it trying to get the metal out and making a mess, and my drug dealer neighbor grabbed his baseball bat and walked up to the homeless guy and started screaming at him to leave my pile of garbage alone and scared him away. I was standing in the driveway talking to a contractor while all of this was going on. 

So to summarize, there are pros and cons, but make sure you know what you are getting into by using a local property management company, and realtor that knows the neighborhoods. Don't get enticed by the low prices. There are actually a lot of properties in the city that people would say are very over valued right now. Additionally, don't forget to check taxes, as they are pretty steep in upstate NY, and the city is going through a re-assessment right now and bumping up the values on most properties fairly significantly.

Rochester is a great Market, we need to add the /s/ for sarcasm here.