All Forum Posts by: Ronald Starusnak

I would not recommend it. The type of people that can not afford a separate apartment are probably not the kind of people you want living with you. It also makes it very hard to remain professional and landlord like while also obeying laws. You're essentially asking if you can have a roommate and of course people do that all the time. 

Hello, I am going to keep this post pretty short. I am an investor located within the Syracuse, NY market. Some call this Upstate NY but the locals call it CNY. Not only am I an investor I am also a property manager and I own a construction and remodeling company. We have high skill employee's on our team that we utilize 7 days a week on our own projects. I currently own 50+ units with more under contract and many more managed by our company. 

Our team within both companies has been running non-stop for the past two years on our small single family and multifamily projects as well as our regular construction and remodeling jobs. Instead of pursuing more smaller multi-family projects we are going to be jumping into 10+ unit multi-family projects. Our team is able to handle every step of every project and every step of every acquisition. We have agents, brokers, dedicated property managers, leasing agents, attorneys, 3rd Party Specialty contractors, remodeling & construction employees, all (except the 3rd party) are directly within our companies. This allows us to be incredibly efficient and complete projects quicker and for much less money. 

With this strategy we have been able to consistently find deals where others couldn't make the numbers work. We are currently working with 4 other private money investors. Feel free to check out my profile and my posts or shoot me an email.

[email protected]
Construction Website: http://www.UNIVERSAL315.com
Real Estate & Management: http://www.RENPRO.org 
Business Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Unive...


Counties Covered: Oswego, Onondaga, Oneida, Madison, Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Cortland 

@Molly Walsh is absolutely fantastic and does almost 100% investor deals. The inventory is low all over and Syracuse is no exception. If you're ready to buy send her a message and she will start sending stuff your way. 

www.MollyTheRealtor.com

You want a vinyl product and a good underlayment that is okay to be used in wet areas. Some lifeproof flooring does not require any underlayment. 

Who cares about those people lol. I can tell you're from California. You're on a real estate investing website, go start a gofundme for those people or something. My heart isn't in any place, I am an investor and I make decisions with my brain not with my heart and not with emotion. 

Increasing property values is the best thing for everyone, when the property values increase and we have higher rents we typically have lower crime, lower crime spurs business growth, more jobs & higher paying jobs, better funded schools from more sales tax and property taxes, area becomes more desirable and it keeps getting better. 

Let's improve these areas and the schools and hopefully it results in less people who can't afford market rent but seriously, pricing people out is not even a consideration when I look at buying a property. 

Who is pretending? Eliminating these run down and disgusting properties is a benefit for everyone. Those who can only afford $300 a month or whichever arbitrary number we are using for the sake of argument, typically qualify for section 8 anyways and section 8 pays a good amount. I have a 3 Bedroom in Syracuse and Section 8 is paying $1,100/month for that tenant. 

Also, if you were trying the Virtue Signaling, pretending to care about poor people, moral superiority thing. I'm not that guy. I am an investor, not a social worker. I am a property manager in many different types of neighborhoods and social classes, I evict people with sad stories all the time. I don't care. I was very poor growing up myself and my family was evicted numerous times and we deserved it every time. When I am looking at buying a property, I never think about how people will feel about increasing the property value and increasing rents.

Gentrification is mostly a good thing and in Syracuse, we need it. My investment strategy and my goal is to take terrible properties, make them beautiful, and rent them out at the top of the market for the neighborhood in which they exist. 

We invest in Oswego county but not Oswego lol. Not sure what's up with the City of Oswego but valuations are horrendous and very hard to value-add. Same with Fulton, I wouldn't touch Fulton or Oswego with a 10' pole. We do invest in other places in Oswego county though. 

Also to add to the above, I will only buy if we're making at least $1,000 per duplex. Average mortgage, taxes, and insurance cost being maybe $900, a two unit that rents for $1,200-$1,300/ea is a no brainer. 

 Yes, you can purchase landbank properties as an absentee owner. The Landbank is 100% investor friendly, they just provide you with a list of repairs that must be made. Your contract with the landbank I think could potentially allow them to take the property back if you refuse to make the repairs. They just don't want to see landlords buying run down properties and leaving them that way. We're buying properties where the old owners are renting units for $450-$650/month because they're so beat, when we're done with the remodel those same units could be $1,100-$1,300. 

There is excellent potential in the city but WEST of 81 and SOUTH of 690 can be hard to BRRRR in. The banks typically don't look at NEIGHBORHOODS though. They usually look for distance, so even if the lender looks for comps within a 1 mile radius. Your neighborhood might support comps at $65k for example but a few blocks away might support comps of $150k. So if you wanted to refi and get 75% LTV of let's say $115k-$125k but your property is in a lower value neighborhood, it is possible. Especially if you're using a HML. I know Limaone hires someone to take pictures for the appraisal, and then they send the pictures to a third party appraiser out of like Texas or something who has no idea about the varying prices within neighborhoods. Someone like this would be easier to push a valuation that makes the investment make sense.

This can put you in a position where you're over leveraged but not really. If you had 5-10 of these properties where the neighborhood comps support a lower valuation than your loan amount, to sell them as a package based on performance would actually cause them to have a higher valuation. It's just the difference between selling a small turn key portfolio or selling them individually. I also think after a few years of investors hitting in these areas, the valuations will increase and even if you're over leveraged on one of these properties, it's not by much at all especially considering the total investment cost and average rental rates being $1,200+.