All Forum Posts by: Ryan D.

@Nicole Marsellla awesome job!! Do you mind sharing what address this was? I'm looking at taking on my first flip in Olde Kensington that sounds like very similar numbers to yours. Feel free to private message me if that works better.  Welcome to BP :)

 This convo sounds familiar :)

Camden feeds off of Philly and the problem has always been Philly is not dense enough to start pushing people outside of the city. If we continue the growth we've had the past few years in Philly for the next 3-4 years then Camden would hopefully start to pick up, notably in Lanning Square & Cooper Grant area. The main question for Camden and the one I ask myself is why pay 3-4x in taxes for a depressed region of Greater Philadelphia when you could find that in the city (Centro de Oro, N. Kensington, Germantown, Grays Ferry, etc.) and only pay PA taxes?

I'll park some of the sites I use to find out owner's name, taxes owed, etc. for Camden here and am looking forward to hearing what others have to say about Camden!

NJ Assessment Records:

http://tax1.co.monmouth.nj.us/cgi-bin/prc6.cgi?district=0408&ms_user=monm

Free Camden Deed Search:

http://24.246.110.18/ClerkSearch/

Zoning:

https://www.ci.camden.nj.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/zoning_map.pdf

Interactive Housing Map:

http://www.camden-data.org/#body

Hey Ziad, I've been in your shoes before and felt I needed to save upwards of 80-100k before buying my first property. Long story short, I missed out on 4-5 years of gains because I did not want to be "too leveraged". You'll get a variety of answers here but ultimately it will come down to how much leverage you are looking to have in your portfolio and your desired strategy. 

You could take the 20-30k cash you have now and look at doing a small multi-family house hack. You could look at buying a house that needs work and is barely mortgagable, take advantage of a small down pmt bank loan and spend all of your extra cash to rehab the property while living in it. Or you could buy in a tougher part of town that is 2-3 years out from being revitalized, buy it for cash via off-market or sheriff sales, board it up then come rehab it later on once the area has started to pick up. There are a lot of other strategies but ultimately that is up to you to decide. What I can tell you definitively is there are plenty of deals in Philly. You just need to dig a little deeper :)

2nd the hard money lender route plus FHA's 203k program and lastly if its going to be your primary residence, check out Philadelphia-based Renofi.com. I recently bought a 4b/1ba house in Fishtown (Adaire Catchment) for 205k cash to use as an Airbnb. I'm in the midst of doing a HELOC through Citizens Bank to fund the remainder of the rehab needed for this property. Shoot me a message if I can help in any way.

If the majority of the walls/ceilings are lath & plaster you can reasonably assume you have knob and tube in the property. It was more than likely spliced into on the top floors of the townhouse. Knowing the area and class of tenants there, if it were my property I would not dump 100k into rehabbing the property for a couple of years. I'd get the property to rental grade per the class of the neighborhood's tenants and then rent it out. Let the property, tenants, and neighborhood dictate your strategy. 

Nick, I love your ambition and admire your vision. What are your cash reserves? If you're spending all of your available cash for your 3.5% FHA down payment then this is a horrifying amount of leverage. There are far too many unknowns and this is the type of deal that only makes sense if everything goes as planned - not a good risk-reward ratio in my mind. The city will drag its feet throughout the whole process and your cash burn will be rampant. Too many variables, keep searching and don't let the results deter you. My partner and I walked through over 100 properties before buying our first in Fishtown. With the amount of creativity you show with finding this deal, you'll definitely land a great deal when it comes your way.

Who is doing the work & the anticipated quality of finishes is needed to give a rough estimate. If you're planning to contract out the entire rehab you should have a GC lined up prior to buying.

@Mauricio Botero when you originally purchased the property a year ago did you have a title search done? If so, your title insurance policy (if purchased) might cover the back water dues. It's unlikely the policy will pay up but worth a shot. If that doesn't work head over to Philly Water and bring your HUD & results of title search conducted prior to your original closing showing your water dues were zeroed out at the time of purchase. They can at least see your possession date on your HUD and know you did not accrue the 6 years of dues since you've only owned the property for a year. Again, not likely to work but the harder you make it on them, the more likely they are to drop it.

Are you still in the service? I believe there is a program available that allows you to buy while still technically on active duty but in the process of moving to SELRES through the VA. Banks will accept your Reservist pay as a source of income, the question is will it be enough? More than likely, no. I was a Reservist and have a good friend who just went through a similar process that almost bought via the program. If you still have time until you leave active duty, shoot me a message and I can get the details for you.

Thanks, Brian. I believe the list price was intended to induce a bidding war and we offered 24k off list because that was all the cash we had. Over the 8 months of searching, we never bothered looking in this area as it was way too expensive for us and we were at least 5 years too late. We had a letter prepared for the seller before we even saw the property in person, knew we'd have to go w/ no contingencies to even be close to buying it and ultimately lucked out on landing it. My partner and I were fully prepared to hear another no, especially with this property. All of this happened on Friday night into the weekend so I think timing really helped plus Philly is seasonal so winters are always less competitive here. We had it under contract in 24 hours and a day later they had a cash offer for full list w/ no contingencies.