All Forum Posts by: Matthew Saskin

I've received preapprovals without any credit  inquiry and without providing credit reports.  I've worked with a half-dozen brokers or so in the past 5 years and all were willing to issue a pre-approval letter off of nothing but my tax returns and paystubs.

-matthew

Agree entirely.  When I'm serious enough about a transaction that I get an inspector involved, I also fly out to meet them and walk through the property at the same time.

Here in NC, I pay 7% of rents, $100 lease renewal fee, 1/2 month rent for tenant placement.  I was able to negotiate this somewhat as I brought 10 units right away to a firm with about 400 units under management, and they understand that I'll be bringing them further business in the future.

 100% this.  People tend to get very myopic and increasing cash flow without thinking about the long-term effects.  While an extra $50 a month for a unit may be nice, what's the alternative to that extra $600?  How much does vacancy, re-leasing, and turnover maintenance cost you?  I can tell you for most of my units my all in costs to turn a unit are in the $2000-$3000 neighborhood assuming no major repairs are needed (eg; that's the price for vacancy, leasing fees, paint, carpet cleaning, other misc. repairs).  It's much more valuable for me to just let a tenant run their course at a lower rent and enjoy the stability of the income.  Of course, this is market dependent - I can without question increase rent at renewal time in some markets (New York City) whereas I avoid rent increases if at all possible in others (North Carolina)

I can't recommend this enough.  When we self-managed our properties in NYC we did this, and a large part of selecting our property management firm here in Raleigh was their approach to building relationships with tenants and making sure that everyone was working from the same game plan - understanding that as a tenant they are responsible for keeping things clean, paying on time, etc. and as a landlord (via our property management) we'll respect that relationship by ensuring that maintenance items are taken care of ASAP, renewals for valuable tenants will be offered without question, etc.  While it is absolutely a business, it's also, to some extent, a partnership between a tenant and a landlord and having a clear understanding of expectations and goals is critical.

 I'll pile on and echo this sentiment.  Every mortgage broker I've ever worked with has been able to provide me with a same-day (usually within a few hours) pre-approval without any heartburn.

Well, the big challenges (rent control/stabilization, tenant friendly housing courts, tough renovations/need for expeditors, etc.) is NYC-wide, no differences between the boroughs there.

As for Manhattan proper, my take is it comes down to two distinct reasons.  First - housing stock.  The bulk of manhattan doesn't have 2-4 family rowhouses/brownstones that exist in the outer boroughs.  The areas of Manhattan that do have smaller row houses are either in midtown near the park or in the east/west village (read: 3-4M+ for a property) or up in Harlem where it's marginally less expensive, but you can't command the rent to justify it.  Second, for those that can afford the rents there is just a high volume of available luxury/high-rise apartment buildings in Manhattan to choose from.  From friends and colleagues that live/rent in NYC, the bulk of owners/landlords of smaller properties in Manhattan tend to be long-term owners (eg; have owned the property for 20, 30+ years).

From an investment perspective, the price in the outer boroughs coupled with the still extremely high demand for rentals makes it a no-brainer if you can afford the entry ticket.

 Adam - originally started investing in NYC about 5 years ago while living there.  Moved to North Carolina 3 years ago but continue to invest in NYC (as well as NC now).  I'm up in NYC every 4-6 weeks for my "day job", to visit family, etc.  I definitely would not consider investing in NYC without feet on the street to identify properties, understand the ins and outs of specific neighborhoods, etc.  There are too many vagaries in the NYC market to be entirely remote in my opinion.

As for identification of properties - mostly driving around my target neighorhoods and seeing what's being renovated. We only purchase renovated properties (from investors/flippers) - there's a bunch of reasons behind that, but that's what we do. MLS listings are pretty useless given the complete lack of a consolidated MLS in the NYC area and the fact that many properties (100% of the ones I've purchased) are never actually listed by any brokers.

-matthew

 I'm happy to share in public or via direct message, ask any questions you've got.

Don't know where you're looking, but 1.2-1.5M in the right neighborhoods can easily get a solid rent roll.  Speaking generally, but I only look at 3/4 unit buildings (duplexes don't make sense), and in the grand scheme of things total number of legal bedrooms is the most important metric as that's ultimately what drives rent roll given that the majority of renters, at least in the gentrifying areas that I target, tend to be recent grads who are sharing an apartment and want to live in the "hot" part of town but can't afford Manhattan proper.  In the case of our last purchase, we paid 1.2M (on a property listed at 1.35M) since they only built it as 7 bedrooms total - during first walkthrough we identified the ability to easily, and legally, add 3 bedrooms to the mix.  End result, we negotiated the seller down, we put 20K in post-closing to add some walls and voila, we turned the apartment from something that would generate 6500-7500/month into something that will generate 9000-10000/month at peak market rents.

 I wouldn't consider that to be a negative thing! ;)