All Forum Posts by: Timothy Smith

Hi Vinod and welcome. I live and invest in the Buffalo area, doing a lot of value-add small multifamily over the last decade, partnerships, a sprinkling of flips, and short-term rentals. I recently became licensed as a New York State salesperson, as it was just the next logical step and now allows me to help all the folks who were coming to me for advice on their own journeys. Would love to connect with you if you are interested. I’m always down for coffee and a chat.

Tim

Hi @Shaun Ortiz and welcome to the Buffalo corner of the BP community. I've taken note of some of your recent posts, and they are all very general questions about investing in Buffalo. It appears to me that you are casting a very wide net, and it may be more beneficial to "drill down" on your questions and relate them directly to your strategy. I have found that the broader the questions are, the less responsive people tend to be, and if they do respond, they are rather broad responses. 

IMHO, your best approach would be to share your goals and investment strategy, then find folks who align with that and can guide you. I'm assuming you don't live in the Buffalo area since your posting headline says "remote" alongside it, but I don't know that for sure. For all we know, you could be looking to invest $5M cash in an apartment complex, or perhaps you are needing to leverage OPM into a small fix'n'flip opportunity. Without more context, it is really hard to give constructive feedback. 

That all being said, there are several of us local Buffalo folks who could certainly point you in the right direction. Some are investors, some are agents, some are PM's, and some are a combination of those things. As for myself, I am a seasoned investor specializing in small multifamily value-add with the (occasional flip mixed in) that came to be an agent out of necessity for my business and the expanded opportunity to help others. Some folks on here stick to turnkey, others are flippers, and so on. 

Hopefully this is helpful feedback, and you appreciate the response. There is a lot of opportunity in Buffalo, but also a tremendous risk if you are not properly informed. 

Hi @Mike Teeple, welcome to the Buffalo BP community! I'd be happy to connect with you and will send you my details in a DM. I am a licensed salesperson with the brokerage Gurney Becker & Bourne, and also self-manage my own portfolio comprised primarily of small multi-family renovation projects. We've done everything from rebuilding a house from the dirt up, to simple paint/flooring updates. I've got a Canadian partner on one current venture so that aspect is not lost on me! Hope we can connect. 

Hi @John. Are you looking for turnkey or a value-add project? Cash flow can be manipulated many ways, including by buying in cash or with higher down payments. However, it’s generally a tough market for turnkey cash flow right now with traditional 20% down investment lending.

I’d be happy to connect with you if you’d like to discuss further.

@Jim Bice this actually sounds pretty reasonable to me given the situation you described. I've got a three story 4-unit in Buffalo with two steam boiler systems. Gas bills spike at $300 or so each during the coldest months. Do yourself a favor and find an expert on your particular system -- that might not necessarily mean one of the big name companies. The old school guys who work on historical properties are a good place to start. We had a couple companies come in and give wild quotes to rework our system, then found a guy who showed up with schematics and trade journal articles on our particular system, spent 2 hours educating us on it, then cost about $500 to go around and fix all the crappy work previous "contractors" did to the system to try "fixing" it. 

Before you raise rents, give it a full calendar year then re-evaluate. Put your thermostats in lock boxes so people can't jack it way up.

Yes, you can still achieve this in the Buffalo market. However...not turnkey, and you've got to know the sub-neighborhoods (or micro markets) as things change very quickly block by block. Expect significant renovation, so having a reliable renovation crew is worth its weight in gold. Being NYS, you've got to know Landlord/Tenant law or leverage someone who does. Property Management takes a nice cut out of your margin, unless you have the systems built to do it in-house. 

That's a lot more to chew on than most non-locals want to deal with, but for those of us here, there are good opportunities to be had.

Once again, @Matthew Irish-Jones beat me to the punch! I was going to caution the same wisdom. This is a tough town to buy in if you don't have reliable boots-on-ground. Neighborhoods change extremely quickly, construction is old and requires people who know what they are doing. Proceed with caution.

Hi Rick, welcome to the BP family. Hope to meet you at next week's Pearl Street meet-up. Nice folks and a lot of knowledge to go around. 

Will send you a DM. 

I'll second what Tim said. Also here in Buffalo, and this was a topic at our monthly BP meetup last week. Everyone is feeling it. Some folks will give you the simple reply that if you can't fill it, your rent is either too high or something else is wrong with your ad. I don't believe that is the case, especially if you have a quality unit, priced competitively, and clear advertising. Someone is always looking to move, you just need to know why. It is better to have a vacant unit than a bad tenant.