All Forum Posts by: Diana Tian

@Doug Pintarch Thank you. I just reached out to a realtor found from zillow and hope someone can help.  

@Charlie MacPherson Thank you. I will check with some local realtors. 

@Charlie MacPherson I am not sure if realtors are willing to take on properties at that price. 

My friend bought a distressed properties in Shamokin, PA (Northumberland County) two years ago. The house has been empty since then. It has created a lot of problems for him and he doesn't want to keep it any more. I have no knowledge about this township. I wanted to ask this quest to local investors/realtors. What is the best way to get rid of it? (I think it worth less than $15k). 

@Kenneth Chen  Welcome! Great progress!

@Paul Jurczyk I don't think there are many wholesalers in Hudson County. I rarely see commercial buildings from wholesalers. Very occasionally I see land for sale from them. I think you could attend some local meetups to see if any investors have things they want to unload. Or you could reach out to some commercial brokers who may have off market listing to share before listing on the market. But I haven't seen many good deals; a lot of them are offered at 5% ~ 6% CAP rate.

@Brook L. just to add, for your condo as a primary residence,  any capital gain will be tax free if you rent it for less than 3 years. If you decide to keep it and rent it out, try to rent it out less than three years. In current market situation, it is very hard to predict the housing market in short term. From financial perspective, I think selling your condo and purchasing another primary house using for house hacking could be a good idea. In this way, you could minimize your housing cost and save on taxes. You could keep the house for a longer term, which will help you avoid any short term risks in the market. 

Overall, I think condos are nice to live in but less attractive for investments. 

@Alex Furini when you are interested in a two-family (or above) house, it is always good to find out what the registered rents are.  

@Alex Furini It is very common in the cities nearby. For west new york, a non-owner occupied two family house is subject to rent control as well. It is similar rule: once you purchase the building and rent out the place, you need to register the rentals if they were not registered before. Every year you need to update the registration for any increases. I am not sure about other areas in New Jersey. 

@Alex Furini I don't know about the exact law. Here is what we are told to do by the city: 1, register the rent rolls with the city if it is not registered; 2, every year update the registration form to reflect the new rents. The new rents can only be increased up to the latest CPI growth rate (the latest one is around 1.3%).  Non-owner occupied 4 units (and above) house  are rent controlled. It seems like 3 units house is also included now...in union city, there are a lot of rent-controlled units getting very low rents (like $500 ~ $700 for small two bedrooms). I would not touch those houses ...it is very very hard to increase the rents to the market value......