All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

@Account Closed

You seem to have a fascination with Los Angeles given your recent posts. Dunno my understanding of Brooklyn is it faces the same problems and opportunities.  

People complain about housing prices and about transplants who they often blame for pushing up prices just like they do just about everywhere else.

The photo is amazing. Where do they place the Sani-Cans?

@Account Closed wholesaling is definitely legal in our DMV area (DC,MD,VA). Some of the largest cash buyers in the area also wholesale, as do many licensed realtors/brokers. There are even some brokerages that "teach" wholesaling. I'm using air quotes on purpose, but won't go into detail, but yes it is legal. I have many realtors on my buyer's list, looking for inventory for their clients.

Anyway, to add to what @Brad Cogswell was saying about being taking advantage of - BALT is a block by block city!! For example, you can have 2 neighborhoods divided by a major street where one side is comprised of totally abandoned/boarded up houses and the other side is a middle class home owner neighborhood. One side keeps it's value & the other side keeps it's market value, thus you can't simply use a Zillow estimate to determine ARV or value of a property in Baltimore city. You can easily drive into & out of "war zones" by simply driving on a single street. Baltimore county is different, values are much higher, but the wholesale/distressed inventory is also less. In my opinion, Balt city is definitely a place you want boots on the ground if you are going to be investing from out of the area. Also local Balt investors tend to have some investing rules of thumbs when deciding if a property on a certain street is questionable or not, doesn't matter your exit strategy ie) fip or rental.

There are definitely development opportunities in blighted areas, that LOCAL investors are doing, by taking advantage of the various Balt city programs that are promoting development. Areas near colleges and hospitals are obvious ones areas of interest. The owner of UnderArmour is doing a ton of renovations, thus investors are flocking to find opportunities near his developments.

Just for giggles, Balt has very tenant friendly laws. Once a tenant is in your property, you better be 150% up on your paperwork & the various laws, timetables, etc. Judges from what I hear, heavily favor tenants in the courtroom. Don't expect to get the benefit of the doubt in court. Conversely if you get section 8 tenants in your properties, they tend to treat properties much better because if they are kicked out of the section 8 program they can't get back in. Tends to help with compliance.

I apologize, I should probably have clarified that the 600-900 dollars is for renting a room* not a SFR.

I only mentioned room rents because many of the buy and hold investors here buy 5-6+ room SFR's and rent out the rooms individually, therefore creating CF in a market where CF is harder to find.

@Account Closed I wouldn't say it's me in particular, more to newbie investors/people that don't know the area. There's the allure of incredible cash flow in Baltimore, which is true. But wholesalers and others know this, and will package up vacant units and try to put a tenant in them and market it as a turnkey deal. If you look at Google Maps you can see comps in the area so it seems to make sense. But when you visit in person you can tell that it isn't worth it.

And spillage into Baltimore definitely is happening in certain areas.

@Account Closed Don't get the tag line. At any rate I have a friend as we speak living in a 1 bedroom apartment. She is a single Mom with 4 kids. She works full time and pays 1100 per month for the roach place. I have been researching the past 5 days trying to find her at least a 2 bedroom. Said friend only makes $13 per hour. There really is no hope in site. I am trying to convince her to pick up and move. Unless she moves to the desert she will continue this struggle. The drawback to moving is she will not have a job and people will not lease to her without income. Even with a decent raise she will have a tough go of it in a 2 bedroom. The prices are insane for bad areas. When I lived in Hollywood in the 90s there were plenty of places to move and afford. Crazy prices now and I feel for the people. I have lived in California and other states. You never make twice the money as people think unless industry specific. I made more in Michigan at times than California with not near the cost of living.

I grew up in Los Angeles.  I went there recently and saw an enormous spike in homelessness.  The city allows small tents in certain places - so you see them everywhere.   There is an affordable housing crisis in Southern California now.   Income is not keeping up with rental increases.

Why is real estate so expensive there?   It is a wealthy state, but people don't make double of what you make in a place like  Dallas.  The answer is the inability to add supply.  And resistance to becoming a more vertical city.  

I've been living in the area my whole life. The rent is highly dependent on the area you choose to live in.

Someone renting in Santa Monica could easily use the same amount of money to OWN in areas of the Valley (the greater Los Angeles area). Sylmar, Reseda, Woodland Hills, Santa Clarita, etc.

The biggest problem is traffic, depending on where do you work?

I work in Television so I travel to all sorts of places and various times. A trip from Sylmar to Sony studios at 5 am is about 25 minutes. leave at 7 am and the same trip is easily 2 hours.

Rents in the valley can range from 600-900 depending on the area. The closer you get to areas like Studio City you can see rents skyrocket to $2-3000.

It's like they say, location location location...