All Forum Posts by: Bill Struthers

Congrats @Zachary Miller! Your story is EXACTLY what I did 3.5 years ago. I live up in more northern Fed Hill on Wheeling St. You will never have a hard time finding people to rent in this area. Usually you'll have multiple people wanting to live with you.

Cheers,

Bill

That may present an issue. I was in a similar situation last year with one of my homes under an LLC. I went to M&T Bank to attempt to get a HELOC/HEL. The short story is that because it's in an LLC, it would need to be a business loan and the bank didn't have any business loans for that amount/type of product. If it had been in my own name, they could have proceeded with a HELOC as normal.

Bill

 In neighborhoods where I'm invested (Federal Hill, Pigtown), the popular thing is to remove dated fake block concrete facades from the 50's to expose the original brickwork. I have not done this myself but have seen it done numerous times. Doesn't seem too complex. I wouldn't imagine you need a permit, but it is Baltimore City so it wouldn't surprise me.

Cheers.

VERY broadly speaking, the "good neighborhoods" are pretty centrally located - south and north of Downtown. If you go too far east or too far west, the neighborhoods start getting worse. 

Welcome @Andrew Bertram!

For finding owners' addresses, use the Maryland Real Property Search Database: 

http://sdat.resiusa.org/RealProperty/Pages/default...

Good luck!

Welcome, @Mike Ohara!

@Robert Carl - I'm currently in the process of buying my second investment home in Pigtown. It's my favorite neighborhood right now for a few reasons: 

1. Proximity to I-95. Pigtown and Fed Hill are far and away the two best locations for easily getting in and out of the city.

2. New Casino/development along I-295. A certain percentage of the casino revenue will flow through the immediate surrounding neighborhoods including Pigtown.

3. Proximity to downtown/Fed Hill/stadiums. People are realizing that it's not worth 3x the price of places in Pigtown to live east of the stadiums.

Are there issues with the neighborhood? Absolutely - i.e. lack of commercial establishments, food options, litter removal, etc.  But for the prices and location, I haven't found an area that is better. 

Do you have any neighborhoods in mind for this? What's your plan, to buy up most of the homes on a particular block and flip or rent them long term or what do you have in mind? 

I've thought about similar ideas from time to time. Issue is, it's so much effort to coordinate on that many properties. 

I appreciate the welcome and advice, everyone! What a great community.

@Jeff K. - I'd love to meet up! I'll definitely be looking into meetings more over the next month. And yeah, actually when I bought my rental, I asked the tenant who lived there what she thought of the prior landlord. "Typical Baltimore slumlord," she said. It really struck me and so I'm doing all I can to earn a better reputation than that! Maybe I'm naive, but it seems sometimes landlords sometimes forget that tenants are actually people.

@Jeffrey Goers - I tend to agree with what Seth mentioned. And actually, I think long term it will be good for the city. It was a catharsis that needed to happen. Hopefully this won't get swept under the rug, and leadership will focus on addressing important issues like this to make the city better. 

Bill

Hey all,

I'll keep this quick-

Just quit my job to pursure real estate investing full time. I currently own my home plus one rowhome rental prop in Baltimore City - the town that I love! The recent events in the city have encouraged me to work even harder to make it a better place for all. I'm excited to find more properties and work on becoming both a better businessman and landlord. Really excited to learn from this website, and hopefully meet up with others in my area! Please feel free to reach out to me or follow me. 

Cheers!

Bill