Hi everyone, I wanted to join in on this conversation as I am a young real estate investor also from New Hampshire. I was born and raised in Nashua, NH (lived there for 21 years) before I started my journey into real estate investing. I bought a condo in Massachusetts with the plan to house hack (before I knew it was called "house hacking" I planned to fix it up a little bit, then rent it out, or sell it - I hadn't really thought that far in advance).
I hadn't started listening to the BP podcast, or any other RE investing podcasts, but I knew I wanted to get started in real estate. So, I inquired about a condo that I was interested in. It was in my price range, but needed a little bit of work. I thought I could fix it up a bit myself and flip it for a small profit or at least rent it out. While I was going through the buying process it came to my attention that the condo association was going to be placing a special assessment on the properties (increasing the HOA fees to cover repairs/renovations). It didn't seem like it was going to be a major deal, so I continued with the purchase.
Fast forward three months, I've been living in the unit, finishing up the renovations/changes I wanted, and I get a noticed from the property management company. Turns out, the renovation project wasn't so small after all. The condo association was undergoing a ~$7 million renovation to improve all of the units and the condo community as a whole. Every unit got a brand new roof, all new windows (including skylights), all new doors, all new walkways, new community pool, new paving throughout and additional parking. About ~$5 million (about $35,000 per unit) was coming from the savings of the community over the past 20 years and the other ~$2 million (about $15,000 per unit) would be funded by an increase in the HOA fee. Since I had only been living there three months, I had paid essentially nothing into the HOA savings fund, yet I was receiving the benefit of $35,000. Long story short, the value of my unit went up significantly and I was able to sell for a profit after owning it for about 7 months.
Again, before I had really started educating myself on RE investing (or listening to BP podcast), I rolled the profits from my first deal into half of a condex in New Hampshire where I am currently house hacking. I wanted to buy a condex property where I could buy both sides, but I needed to please my significant other and we were in a bit of a hurry to move. I refused to buy anything overpriced, so we ultimately got a good deal on half of a condex that I am currently making small changes to while we live in it. I plan to rent this property out when we move into our next house hack.
I'd love to continue to chat with everyone in this thread to learn more about your approaches, strategies, insight, experience, etc in our local New Hampshire area.
