All Forum Posts by: Jessica Woodhouse

:-)

Hi! If Hollis is reading this I'd love to know how that deal turned out. Did you decide to buy and renovate? And most important what was your experience with the Ithaca city planning board and inspectors? I'm also beginning a search for rental properties in Ithaca. And as someone who has lived there on and off for 20 years I've heard a lot of stories like the one Tim mentioned. so I'm curious to hear how things turned out for you!

By the way the story has a happy ending. The kids and I got a Hav-a-Heart and jar of peanut butter. We trapped the rat — who we named Templeton of course — and released him humanely at an undisclosed location. Then we came home and patched the hole in the wall to prevent more visitors.

That was the moment when the fatal thought crossed my mind: “Hey I could do a better job at managing rental units than these clowns!!”

;-)

Emma I DO indeed know INHS! And I know Sue Cosentini pretty well too though I haven’t seen her much since I moved to Corning a few years ago.

I also have my fair share of crazy Ithaca renter stories. Including the time when we lived in a Fall Creek rental where we kept hearing weird noises in the walls that we figured were just squirrels nesting in the crawl space  ... until finally one night a huge rat squeezed out from behind the stove and ran around our kitchen while the kids and I were sitting there! I mean that thing wasn’t just in our kitchen. It was OWNING our kitchen! 

I called the landlord. Nada. Until two or three days later I’m home and I hear some kind of scratching on the door. So I go out and see the maintenance guy just trying to stuff some glue traps in my screen door. As if he was hoping to leave them there and run away without even knocking.

I was like “No way Dude! That thing was the size of a chihuahua! That trap would be like a piece of bubblegum stuck on its shoe! And anyway what am I supposed to do if I actually catch it?!”

So he walks back to his truck, grabs a shovel, comes back over and hands me that too! 

And THEN he leaves. All without even stepping inside the door or making any effort to, I don’t know, maybe close the huge hole in the wall that the rat jumped out? Or deal with the issue that there are literally rats running around in the walls?! 
 

Only in Ithaca could you pay $2200 a month for THAT level of customer service!!

Yes that does sound like Ithaca! Everything you say makes a lot of sense.

I also used to live in Northeast, right across Route 13 from Dryden ... great area especially if you’re near Sapsucker Woods  :-)

Thanks for the input. and I will keep you posted!

Hi Amos and Emma, thanks for responding so quickly! 

Mainly I'm looking for people with on the ground rental experience in Ithaca NY. 

Ithaca is a very odd market because of the extremely robust renters' rights, flood zones, historic housing stock, and bizarre renovation/repair permitting requirements (ie, the infamous "you can't move an electrical socket in Ithaca without going all the way to city hall" rule). 

So basically I'm hoping to find people who have actually managed multifamily units in Ithaca and are willing to share their experiences with me as to what worked -- and what didn't.

Thanks

Jess

Hi all! 

I'm looking to invest conservatively in rent-and-hold properties in the Ithaca NY market. I've lived in or near Ithaca NY for over 20 years. So I know the area inside and out and I also have a lot of contacts in the local arts/music/literary/academic community. I'd like to build a small portfolio of family-friendly, low-turnover Fall Creek or BJM school district rentals that meets that community's needs. 

I believe there's a real niche in the Ithaca market for charming, well-maintained 2-4 bedroom units in the walkable historic neighborhoods -- units that are actually affordable for middle-class families, not just for tenured Cornell professors or for college kids renting at $800 per bedroom. 

No one's going to get rich on this market, especially given Ithaca's high property values and city taxes. But I'm not looking to get rich. I'm just looking to downsize into one of my own units, retire early, and focus on my creative work (which already brings in a modest income that would increase significantly if I had more time to spend on it). 

I'm trying to explore whether this business model will actually work. And if so, how to put together an intelligent business plan moving forward. I am especially concerned about the taxes and licensing/permitting issues in Ithaca -- measures that were theoretically supposed to control abusive slumlords but actually seem to be pushing small-scale sustainable landlords out of business. So I see a potential opportunity, but also a potential risk....

I'd love to hear from people who have experience renting in college towns -- and especially from anyone who has Ithaca-specific experience. Ithaca definitely seems to follow its own weird rules. Just like the bumper stickers say: we are "10 square miles surrounded by reality"!! 

Thanks! 

Jess