All Forum Posts by: Moshe H.

Hi @Allyssa Compton, I live in Rockland too and was thinking the same thing. We pay some of the highest RE taxes in the country so I'm not afraid of high taxes. It's all about making the numbers work. Often areas with higher taxes will have higher rents and more stable tenants. (Not always, in the village where I live I don't think there's any way to make the numbers work on a SFH rental.) I've been keeping an eye on Haverstraw, where the prices are believable (in the 200s), and the rents seem high enough to cover the taxes and provide cash flow. That said, I have no experience there as of yet.

About Newark, there are a LOT of previous threads on it and you should really do a search on BiggerPockets. It seems like the kind of place where you can make a lot of money IF you make it your business to become an expert on the area. A few have mentioned that you really have to drive the streets where you are looking to invest and talk to the locals. I think @Ibrahim Hughes and @Omar Ismael have done a lot of investing there and have some perspective. (I don't seem to be able to tag them here.)

@Dwayne Hayes-Ward Hi and welcome! Irvington looks like an interesting area to me, with pretty low prices. Are you doing your investing there yourself? Any tips on good neighborhoods?

Another issue - tags don't seem to work consistently? I couldn't tag @Kenneth LaVoie before... now it seems I can.

 I don't know if it has been updated since then, but I stopped using the app a few months ago because BP's mobile site actually has more functionality! I'd also like to throw my support behind @Kenneth LaVoie - good suggestions about the marketplace. My own additional comment is that the filter function doesn't seem to work well. For instance, I am unable to click the "X" to remove a filter, both on my Android Chrome browser and on my desktop browser (Opera, runs on the Chromium engine). That means I have to reload the whole forum every time I want to tweak my filters.

Beautiful! I have had my eyes on Haverstraw as well since it's got a strong economy and seems to be one of the only places in my county that has a decent rental market and affordable prices.

Hi Josh, thanks for your awesome answer. The property is being marketed and priced for redevelopment, with the current income as a perk. Based on current income, it is at a 4% cap rate. For some reason I hadn't actually thought of looking for it on LoopNet, where it is indeed being marketed - but the asking price is $1.3 million. When I talked to the broker about offering $900,000 she said I should put in the offer because it's been on the market a while and they need to sell. That itself would get the cap up to 5.72%, and if I raise rents to market and fill a couple vacancies I think it would go up to 7%. Billboard is an interesting thought, but I'm not sure that would add significantly to the income. To get a higher return would require either making additions to the current building or redeveloping the whole lot.

So, in answer to your first bullet point, there's really nothing I can see to get it up to 10% without sinking a good amount more cash into it.

The seller is an older gentleman who apparently owns a lot of commercial property up there, so yes, and experienced investor. I was told he is motivated. He is not necessarily offering 95%, he is offering to carry the note and my thought was to see if he would accept 95%.

As far as land value, interesting point. Just looking on Zillow I see a couple miles up the road a 7+ acre vacant lot zoned commercial with 500+feet of frontage on the same highway for $400k. So, a lot more space for a lot less money, although the location might not be quite as good, which of course can have a big effect on value. So although I'm not familiar enough with the area it does seem that it may be somewhat overpriced as empty land.

I don't know anything special about mobile home parks but I did come across this article the other day. Definitely worth looking at if the deal requires you to basically install 12 more mobile units:

http://www.mobilehomeuniversity.com/articles/why-you-dont-want-to-build-a-mobile-home-park.php

I'm looking into purchasing a commercial lot that is a corner lot on a state highway in a tourist region of NY. The seller is very motivated and willing to finance and I would like to offer what I can afford - 5% down. The property has a very small office building and a couple of manufactured homes on it right now, so its income can cover expenses and mortgage debt as is, but it is being marketed as redevelopment land. The idea would basically be to let it pay for itself until I either find a big box interested in the location (quite a few have built in the area in recent years) or raise money from partners to finance its development into a bigger retail/mixed use space. I expect to have funds available in a year or two to put $100k+ into financing development, as well.

Oh, and it's also not very close to where I live. About 2.5 hour drive.

Being new to real estate - am I getting myself in over my head? I do have a good relationship with the broker, who is an experienced commercial developer and offered to help me with property and project management after I purchase.

Tips, encouragement and/or warnings of doom would be appreciated ;-)

I'm in my early 30s but within 10 years I'd like to replace my and my wife's incomes and retire :) It's ambitious, especially considering we have, let's say more kids than the average American!

Currently waiting to see how my first deal turns out.

"I see people day in and day out succeed in the real estate investing world and that is what has brought me here today." Seems like I hear that a lot on the forums/podcasts from bankers, accountants and other professionals who deal with real estate investors and then say, hey, these guys are doing awesome and I could too!

Good luck to you and welcome to BP.