All Forum Posts by: Sebastian Garcia

Hello everyone!

I'm looking at properties in the Union City area, including Jersey City Heights, West New York, and North Bergen, but focused on Union City mainly for the short commute to the city. I live in NYC and grew up in North Bergen so I'm familiar with the area but not necessarily the real estate market. I'm currently looking at multi-families (likely to house hack) but most modest duplexes are going for 499k+, which is right at the budget I set for myself. I'd go slightly higher for triplexes and whatnot, but those seem rare. 

Do any experts from the area have some advice on how the market is doing? Is it still worth it or should I look elsewhere? I'm going for rental income rather than appreciation. Should I also start looking at "as-is" homes? My dad's also been in construction for 30+ years and can easily work on fixer-uppers, but I'm generally risk-averse (and it's my first property) and don't want to encounter a host of unforeseen issues. But I do want to leverage his expertise.

Any and all advice is appreciated!

Thanks,

Seb

@Trevor Ewen

Thanks for the input! I was wondering why these types of discussions were rare here and it makes sense- there's no centralized source to make it easier and and there's probably hundreds of thousands of local sources that need to be pieced together.

That's definitely a good list to get started, at least for the tiny piece of Jersey I'm looking into. I'm sure as I get more into it I'll have a much better understanding on what types of data is best. Nothing beats domain knowledge.

Thanks again!

Hello everyone!

Quick bit about me- I'm a data scientist working in NYC and literally just started looking into REI a week ago. Mostly because of the dream I have of retiring early with a nice cash flow, but also partly because of the undoubtedly cool stuff I can do with the data.

I'm aware there are probably a good amount of tools/sites already available for determining hot markets in the area, where to invest in hopes of appreciation, predicting house value, etc. But it would be a dope project to build some machine learning model tuned to exactly what I want, like interactions between price and crime and population movement and income shifts and their impact on cash flow, not just property value. And so on and so forth.

I'm going with the Zillow API for now but it seems there's a pretty low rate limit. But it's a good start.

If anyone can point me to less-known real estate open databases/APIs that supply additional information, as well as any smaller data sources you find valuable, please let me know! I'd love to share any findings here.

And if anyone's looked into or done this kind of stuff- data science for real estate- I'm very curious about your experiences and I'd love to hear about them!

Thanks!

@Ian thanks! Just pm'd you.

@Mario thanks for the insight! If you did have the money, would you invest in the west side? That's probably the only area I can afford to invest in at the moment. Of course I'll check it out in person but a general feeling from someone more local would help as well

Good Evening!

A little intro about myself - I'm working in NYC and originally from North Bergen. I figured now's probably the best time to take some risks given that I'm financially stable and have build up a good amount of savings. I daydream about retiring early and being financially independent, but I know I have to front load my efforts in the next 10 years or so to reap the full benefits later on. While the slow gains on mutual funds and 401k and IRA are nice, I'm looking for more cash flow.

I've been doing research about real estate investing for a week or so now . I've talked to a few friends who are actively in the business and I'm very intrigued and I've blazed through the ultimate beginner's guide as well. 

I briefly looked into some areas in northeast NJ, some close to the shore, some properties slightly north of the Bronx, some cheaper Connecticut areas, etc. I'm now focusing a bit more on Asbury Park and Long Branch, along with the surrounding areas, partly because my brother is moving to the area to be closer to work so that's an at least one potential tenant.

My question is- does anyone have insight into those local markets? Particularly the west of the tracks in Asbury Park? I visited the up-and-coming area by the beach (aka the 4-5 blocks) one night and loved it, and some properties west of the track are sufficiently close to the beach in my opinion. But I read that the boom is occurring almost exclusively east of the tracks and is very concentrated, hence the rise in median prices. Is there potential for that to boom to expand outwards across the tracks in the next coming years? Not that I'm trying to predict the future, but guidance from people who definitely know a lot more about the market is much appreciated.

And of course, if anyone has suggestions into what other markets I should look into, I'm all ears! I'm in the window shopping phase and it's fun =D

Thanks so much!