All Forum Posts by: Lucas Procopio

also our local newspaper just had a story that the city is actually showing rising home costs for the first time in over 10 years, so I'm thinking it's about time to pull the trigger on something, this is not a town that gets news like this very often, but it seems more chains are considering moving in so people are seeing opportunity here. Although it seems there all heading to one small area, even local businesses are relocating to this tiny section of town and other areas are slowly becoming abandoned.

Sorry for the long delay, works been crazy. That was some great information Ron, I have noticed from the county website the area has a lot of out of county/state investors who own single family here, my last two residences were owned by people out of state. I would love to talk more, you seem more informed than many of the people around here. What's your history with new castle? 

We actually pay about 2.5% in local taxes vs surrounding areas around 1% because it's a "depressed area". Population is decreasing, more young people are heading toward Pittsburgh but many lack the education to find gainful employment there and resort to low skilled low paying jobs here. It is a blue collar city overall, which actually allows manual labor to be an in demand skill people pay for. I myself currently work in a union warehousing job and alone bring in over double the avg household here, which gives me a false sense of what the avg person can afford here. But overall many mills have closed, a few steel mills remain, but overall it may have an uptick in new jobs with proposals for plants coming nearby. I'm new to all this so truly understanding my city is something I'm less than proficient at. I'm trying to learn as quickly as I can though.

A few triplexes have 2 occupied multi bedroom units and a 1br vacancy. I smell a potential house hacking situation, I was preapproved for a 70,000 loan last year and since then have had a 33% increase in salary so I know obtaining many homes in the city wouldn't be an issue, it's just finding the right situation. 

Awesome input and Jason I will keep you in mind, Craigslist actually has quite a few occupied rentals here under 50,000 I will look into a little more and run some numbers. In theory a triplex here with 1,400 of current incoming rent going for 35,000 seems kind of unbelievable for this area but I guess I should be open minded since people can have legitimate reasons for selling not related to the property itself. But there are rumors the area may get a boost from a cracker plant bringing some jobs and certain retail chains recently moving in like the petsmart in union twp. I'm not giving up on new castle yet.

we do have a community college branch here, actually attended myself about 6 years ago to get my A.A.S. In business. Besides that, bigger schools are all out of the county, never having done this before I'm very nervous but on the plus side there's not massive competition for properties, maybe for good reason I've seen many sitting for sale 100+ days even in the price ranges that seem very fair for this area. Although I do notice many people my age, mid 20s, looking for rental units here so I'm assuming the demand is not being met or properly marketed.

This is very broad so I just looking for some past experiences one may have had, I'm 25 years old and currently hold a solid union job in western PA about an hour north of Pittsburgh. The city I'm in is a depressed area of about 30,000 people with very little in the way of jobs paying over $8.00 an hour, avg household income here is $25,000. The average 3 bedroom home goes for about 60,000 but many more closer to the 50,000 mark, very little in the way of rentals, maybe 3 small apartment buildings a few single families and a few multi families all renting for about 500-700 a month. The 2 nice areas of town have going rates from 120,000-200,000. There are some potential rehabs. Does anyone have experience in this type of area and any tips on RE in a depressed city or should I possibly consider avoiding and look elsewhere, just looking for other opinions.

Hello BP community, I'm a 24 year old aspiring real estate investor, with the eventual goal of financial freedom. I'm hoping to meet some great minds who can help on this path to get started.

First off I am 21 years old and would love to learn more about the real estate lifestyle, I am currently starting to save up and would like some advice on whether it is better to look at flipping or renting, when you are just starting out with RE