All Forum Posts by: Steve Buchanan

Any advice pertaining directly to NYC?

I've just been doing some reading online and I came across these few sentences:

"The MLS concept is very familiar to real estate buyers in every part of the U.S., except New York City. An MLS is still a pretty new concept in much of New York City (particularly in Manhattan). Even though all the major Manhattan brokerages have finally joined a single MLS, the long tradition of only showing "in house" listings will take some time to change, and multi-brokerage online search systems for consumers still aren't common."

I've heard people describe NYC as a wild wild west kind of market and a market where "who you know" really matters.

I bring this up because I'm interested in flipping houses/apartments in NYC and a lot of the tips/tricks I'm hearing about when deciding on a target area or neighborhood involve the MLS -- ex. DOM (days on market) or large spreads between the price of distressed properties and ARV (after rehab value).

What other methods or strategies would you guys recommend (that don't require the MLS) when trying to determine your target market besides shaking as many hands as possible?

Congrats Darren. And yes, if you haven't listened to his podcast, definitely do so.

Hey Mathias. I've got a similar plan. I'll be moving to NYC in April and will start building my real estate business with the intention of working at it full time. Similar to you, I'm also considering doing single family flips but trying to do my research now to see if there's a market for it. A key component of flipping is being able to find distressed properties and I know inventory of distressed properties is evaporating. If you haven't already read J. Scott's book "The Book on Flipping Houses" I'd recommend reading it.

As far as finding cash flow properties, I know that's a pretty difficult if not impossible task in NYC. Cap rates are really low.

If you're ever interested in chatting I'm here. Good luck!

Edit: I see you mentioned you work in NY and I just assumed it's NYC because you're in finance. I could be wrong.

Great Peter. I'll keep you in mind.

Thanks Brandon. Yes, I already got "keyword alerts" set up. It looks like a really cool feature.

How do I input your name, @Darren Sager so that it is linked?

Thanks @Darren Sager for the warm welcome. Good to know that NYC is a real "who you know" type of market. I'll definitely make it a point to try and get to know many people here on BP.

Hey everyone. I'm really excited about joining the BP family.

Just to give a little background info about myself, I've been a professional poker player for many years now and have been living abroad to play online poker for the past 3 years (Sydney, Australia for the last 2). I'll be getting married next year and moving back to the states and therefore ending playing poker as a full time professional.

Real estate investing is my new passion and I've spent much of this last year reading, researching, and talking to others about it. As far as my experience goes, I own a townhouse that I rent to students in my former college town since I graduated in 08. I'm excited to soak up as much as I can and hopefully get the ball rolling.

New York City is the place I'll be heading to in April 2014. Are there people having success there? If so, what type of deals are they doing? I know it's a really expensive and competitive market.

I'm looking forward to getting to know many of you.