All Forum Posts by: John T.

Admittedly, we are new to real estate in general. With that being said, we've been working with an agent looking for MF's for the last few weeks. Every liveable MF that comes up only lasts that day or that open house weekend. Every. Single. One. We've put offers in that are over asking, but we are easily turned down. When I look at the ARV from last year sales for comparable MF's and they are $100K less. $100K!??

It seems a lot of foreign investors/cash buyers are making the purchases. Is this normal? If so, this is a complete demoralizer for "normal" folks who are actually trying to purchase an MF to live in. There is no way to compete. 

Has anyone else noticed this trend lately?

When determining cashflow and expenses needed for a multifamily property, how does one factor in a cost if a house comes deleaded? A simple example: 3-plex house A is deleaded @$500K, but is negative cashflow of $100. 3-plex House B is not deleaded @$450K, but positive cashflow $100. 

Hi William, great question for the Boston market - and hopefully someone will be able to provide some insight soon. 

We're also fairly new to the area and were wondering about the requirements for landlords to have their units lead-free - and how much would a de-leading cost (we've encountered a couple of properties on the market that were not de-leaded).

Hi James, welcome on BP!! We're fairly new members in the BP community, but we can attest to the fact that this website and its members can be an invaluable resource!

We're in the same situation as you, looking for MF around Boston to househack and/or as an investment opportunity. However, after doing some intensive search and seeing some properties, we have to say - the Boston market is not so easy! If you're looking for something that is still relatively close to the city, the prices are quite prohibitive. Not saying it's impossible, but Boston will put new investors like ourselves to the test! Gotta do lots of due diligence before finding the right deal (or, be really lucky).

Best of luck with your search!

So we took our tour through Lowell and we were rather disappointed. While the numbers work out better in Lowell, we were not excited about the City itself. Yes, downtown is nice, but that seems to be about all. It seemed anything across a bridge was rundown and unsafe. Plus, there were a lot of vacant buildings in downtown itself, which is never a good sign for a city. Is there a certain area that is "up and coming?"

I guess it's all relative then.... as we don't find Boston prices to be really "heavenly"! ;)

@Adam Yellin welcome to BP and to the Boston real estate community!

Hey Johnny, welcome to BP! We're "newbies" as well but also from the Boston area and looking to invest in multifamilies around Lowell / Haverhill / Chelmsford. Hopefully we'll meet you at some REIA meeting in the area!

Take care,

Martina & John

Shaun, Nick,

thank you for the great insight. You seem to have quite some experience in the area, those are all great tips. It looks like we are going to have to do some due diligence, but this is exactly why we want to avoid rushing into deals and rather get to know the market first.

We're aware that we will not have the "city life" we can get from Brookline, but what made us consider towns like Lowell, Haverhill, etc. is our expectation of a little better cashflow than we would get in Boston.

Really appreciate all of your input and feedback and will keep you posted on what we learn through our search!

Thanks for the welcomes! We have been slowly researching the areas north of Boston, since Boston is rather expensive. We aren't locked down to one city, so suggestions are always welcome. We are considering as far up as Lowell. 

We plan to only live in the multi-family for 2 years before moving on. Right now, we are working on our business plan and considering purchasing a home through the "FirstPath" program on the Homepath website. I (John) am a veteran, so funding shouldn't be an issue, but we are taking a very conservative route and building our business plan to cover anything we can thing of to help better be prepared when it's time to jump. 

Thanks for the info on the groups. While I do not think we can make this meeting, we will definitely be looking to join a future one to start locally networking.

Hello everyone,

My girlfriend Martina and I are a professional couple who recently moved to Boston after living abroad for some years. While we were initially considering buying property instead of renting, we are now glad we didn’t make the beginners’ mistake of rushing into buying just for the sake of it – as we realized we still have so much to learn about real estate investing!

Biggerpockets has proven to be an invaluable resource in getting us up to speed on so many topics related to real estate investing – thank you all for being part of such a thriving and helpful community!

After giving some thought to the various options, we have decided to start off with purchasing multifamily properties (triplexes / fourplexes) with the intent to build up a strong buy-and-hold portfolio. We are hopeful to close our first deal by the end of 2015, and ideally, we would like to house-hack on our first property. We know we still have a long road ahead, but we are striving to build a solid foundation by setting up a strong business plan and gain as much knowledge as we can.

We are looking forward to our future interactions with Biggerpockets members and hope to increasingly contribute to this community that, in such short time, has been already teaching us so much!

John & Martina