All Forum Posts by: Leo Poon

I lived in AC for years and now reside just off island. There is plenty of potential investments in the city, and the prices are reflecting it. A lot of people snatching up vacant lots and run down properties especially on the south end near the new Stockton University campus and the new business park going in next door. The Tenn Ave project is just getting underway, and it is in a terrible area that they are hoping to turn around. If you buy near it for that, plan on it taking a long time to appreciate and be worthwhile. We are talking bad neighborhood. 

The taxes are very high yes. On a good note you can get waterfront property for far less than any other shore town.

AirBnB is risky if you don't know the area. You must know the good and bad parts of AC, and there are unfortunately plenty of bad, and they are interspersed with the good unlike other cities where you can stay out of certain neighborhoods. In AC it is a block by block situation. 

I lived in AC for years and now reside just off island. There is plenty of potential investments in the city, and the prices are reflecting it. A lot of people snatching up vacant lots and run down properties especially on the south end near the new Stockton University campus and the new business park going in next door. The Tenn Ave project is just getting underway, and it is in a terrible area that they are hoping to turn around. If you buy near it for that, plan on it taking a long time to appreciate and be worthwhile. We are talking bad neighborhood. 

The taxes are very high yes. On a good note you can get waterfront property for far less than any other shore town.

AirBnB is risky if you don't know the area. You must know the good and bad parts of AC, and there are unfortunately plenty of bad, and they are interspersed with the good unlike other cities where you can stay out of certain neighborhoods. In AC it is a block by block situation. 

I lived in AC for years and now reside just off island. There is plenty of potential investments in the city, and the prices are reflecting it. A lot of people snatching up vacant lots and run down properties especially on the south end near the new Stockton University campus and the new business park going in next door. The Tenn Ave project is just getting underway, and it is in a terrible area that they are hoping to turn around. If you buy near it for that, plan on it taking a long time to appreciate and be worthwhile. We are talking bad neighborhood. 

The taxes are very high yes. On a good note you can get waterfront property for far less than any other shore town.

AirBnB is risky if you don't know the area. You must know the good and bad parts of AC, and there are unfortunately plenty of bad, and they are interspersed with the good unlike other cities where you can stay out of certain neighborhoods. In AC it is a block by block situation. 

I work in mid Town Manhattan and currently live in Queens, NY but am actively looking for a 2 family house to live and invest in towns of Jersey close to NY. Preferrably, the town has fair good school, reasonable tax (around 5000 or lower), stable income earners, and close to NYC. My husband and I saw 4 places in union city, and one of them is appealing but the tax is too high (8600/yr), we like our cash return from the rent covers at least 2/3 of monthly payment (mortgage, insurance and tax) . We are planning to hold the property for 5 to 7 years if the cash flow return of rental is good. I would love to meet people and hopefully get some guidance on my next move. 

But as a buy and hold rental investor, I am giddy about prices dropping in the area as should any other long term investors. Finally opportunity is coming back.

Either large multifamily (10+ units) with totally outsourced property mgmt. or mixed use business/residential or straight commercial (strip mall, etc). Also considering self-storage if the right deal were to come along. Very uninterested in being a landlord so looking for something big enough that we can hand off mgmt. to someone else.

YES, prices are dropping here in Hunterdon County. It used to be that only the 400K+ houses sat on the market for months but now I see that more modestly priced homes are sitting longer and houses are coming on the market for lower asking prices than we would have seen a year or two ago. We sold two houses last year for full asking price in 3 and 5 days. We just put our latest flip house under contract after a measly six showings in two weeks and are selling it for 35K less than listing price. Granted, that house had some challenging features but we were surprised by the lack of traffic. We also sold our own home earlier this year, took three weeks to go under contract, then fell through four weeks later (on the buyer's end), sat on the market for another three weeks and we went under contract for 45K less than original asking price. This is definitely making us shift our strategy. For one thing, we are looking to move into commercial buy and hold. We also have to be tighter with the numbers on our flips, has to be an even better deal for us to carry the risk moving forward. I think it is related to the high property taxes, high cost of living in NJ in general, the new SALT law and creeping mortgage interest rates...those who don't buy with big profit margins built in will be challenged to make money when they exit the deal.