All Forum Posts by: Seth Hochberg

Nice job Natasha! That's fantastic that you had such a good deal you were able to afford extra renovation costs. It sucks you were burned from contractors, who perhaps took advantage of the uncertain nature of covid, but I can say from experience that getting burned is the best way to learn! But congratulations on finishing out on top! 

Did you BRRRR this property? If you bought with hard money, I'm assuming you refinanced to pay off the hard money loan?

MECU is another good one for Baltimore investors.

I agree with @Joe Norman - I have yet to see any property with an ARV of 200k that has vacants on the block. The one exception is if you are buying the very last vacant on that block, then that's usually a good deal. But having a vacant next door is not great - you can't even rent the house using section 8 (I'm 95% sure of that - someone may need to fact check me there).

Also, I don't feel many neighborhoods are up and coming in Baltimore. In DC, there's been a lot of change in the last 20 years (even the last 5) so if you pick the right neighborhood, you might get lucky and and catch the wave as home values are increasing. DC is a huge appreciation play. As an investor in Baltimore I assume I will get 0% appreciation - because the appreciation you do get will usually be nominal. So I'd be wary of the "Up-and-coming" neighborhood idea as I believe the neighborhood already "came" or it will not.

Just my $0.02

Baltimore has a certain degree of risk, especially to people out of state, who are just looking at numbers on the paper. However, I would say that risk is not distributed evenly among all of Baltimore. The 30k-50k SFH properties that might satisfy a 2-3% rule are going to carry a lot more risk than the A-neighborhoods that you seem to be considering. If you're looking to invest in downtown (Inner Harbor, Canton, Fed Hill, Fells Point, Harbor East, etc, then those neighborhoods definitely carry some of the least risk in the entire city.

And to vaguely answer your other question, Baltimore will not get you very much appreciation, it has had a declining population for the last 70 years, is extremely tenant friendly, and the Baltimore Orioles had the worst record in baseball this year (but the Ravens are doing well!) LOL. Baltimore's culture is quirky and it's called Charm City because it has a certain charm, but does not broadly appeal to everyone. I would classify Baltimore on the investor side of things the same way. It can be a really solid place to invest (I love it!) but it's not for everyone. 

Cool! Welcome to Bigger Pockets. Tell us more! What type of investment are you looking for? House Hack? BRRRR? Turnkey? Do you know where you're thinking of looking in Baltimore? Are you from/currently living in Baltimore?

For local real estate investor groups: just search for them on Facebook - there's a few solid ones there.

If you add "Baltimore" to your list of alert keywords you'll see that Baltimore comes up a number of times for people choosing which market to invest in. It's very enticing with an extremely good price-to-rent ratio, and a large population of renters.

However, many people would recommend you stay away from Baltimore if you've never lived here before. Baltimore real estate investing goes deeper than the numbers on the paper and is very easy for out-of-state investors to get burned. It's extremely block-by-block and that combined with lack of knowledge about the area can be a recipe for disaster. Not saying you should avoid Baltimore, just saying it's risky. That being said, I BRRRR'd my first property in Baltimore and it went relatively well. Your mileage may vary.

In Baltimore, those would be primarily cash-flow plays.

In some of the nicest areas of Baltimore (which it sounds like you're looking for), a single family home will only be around 200k-400k which is probably less than it'll run you in Northern Virginia. These nice areas generally have high taxes, but you'll usually get quality tenants. Hampden, Charles Village, Fed Hill, Fells Point, Inner Harbor, and Canton are a few neighborhoods that are A neighborhoods, but have plenty of renters. You can also look in areas like Roland Park, which is also really nice, but you won't find many renters there, as that has a very high ownership rate. Baltimore is generally block to block, but in those neighborhoods, you'll be pretty safe. I believe most of these neighborhoods have an additional tax for being the nicest neighborhoods in Baltimore, so that will eat into your cash flow, but generally Baltimore has great cash flow. However, you'll be hard pressed to see much (or any) appreciation. 

There are also plenty of neighborhoods that are a grade below that are still excellent investments. I just say this because these neighborhoods I mentioned already are most certainly not the only places one should invest, but they will be a bit safer.

You can also consider some of the surrounding Baltimore county, but that is out of my realm of knowledge. Generally, those are investments with lower cash flow, and more competition, but they're safer investments. However, that's just a massive generalization, and obviously varies.

You probably won't get any referrals on a public forum, especially for a contractor. In the real estate world, people tend not to give up their contractor so easily! I would recommend you checkout one of the many Maryland real estate investing Facebook groups, as you'll have better luck there. Also continue/start to network, as many referrals come from the relationships you build.

Hey Maggie! Welcome to BiggerPockets. I'm not a moderator, but I don't believe BiggerPockets is the right place to post when you're looking for a place to rent. This would be a place to discuss buying and owning properties, and would be a great resource when you're ready to jump into real estate as the owner. Best of luck!