Worcester Multi-Family Real Estate Blog

Another great 3 decker article. You can read it here. I have to agree with Mike DeLuca on this one. The costs to convert old houses to electric is substantial; even with a gut renovation, it might be $30k more than traditional heating/AC systems. Impact of Electrification on Tenants What does this do? Well, as mentioned in the article, if the cost is borne by a non-profit that can afford to keep the rents low, then those tenants can benefit from the improved house. However,

Here is an article from Mass Live written by Trea Lavery. This is an interesting concept: weatherizing and electrifying old buildings to bring them from the 19th and 20th centuries into the 21st century and provide better housing. For someone who has seen more of these than most people (I have seen 2,441 investment properties in and around Worcester since I started counting in 2018), I agree that these buildings need a lot of work. It is a great sentiment to improve these bui

A great song and a sad day for buyers in MA. As you can see from this article, the sellers are simply gone from the market. It is like they are on strike. We are down to 30 MULTIS for sale in Worcester, MA. That is crazy. A normal market has between 55 and 75 buildings. And as you know, there are a bunch in there that will NEVER SELL at those prices, so are they really for sale? Sales are down, prices are up, and there is no inventory. This is because the FED kept rates too l

I just read a wonderful article in Banker and Tradesman. You can find it here. I can't agree more with the sentiments expressed in the article. Essentially, there are too many part-time agents who don't know what they are doing, and it hurts the professionals who do. Bad agents make a bunch of money and take it away from the good agents. The clients have a poor experience, and that hurts the profession overall. It is sort of like a bad financial planner; if they don't add val

I may seem like a hypocrite here since I bought my first 3 Family with an FHA loan and 3.5% down back in 1999. But there are more options now. Mass Housing has some products. Local Credit Unions and Local Banks have portfolio loans with low down payments. Why You Should Go FHA You have BAD CREDIT You only have 3.5% to put down, and hope someone else is paying your closing costs into the loan There are often higher loan limits than with conventional programs Why You Should Get

I have now seen this same article 2X. Most recently this week. They have Worcester as #1 of cities you won't be able to afford in 5 years. From what the market is doing, it could be the case. Prices keep hanging on, but more importantly, the rents keep rising. When rents rise, the price of 3 deckers (a good option for buyers to gain a toehold in the real estate market) goes up. We are currently in a situation where prices are so high for a 3 decker (along with the mortgage ra

Wonderful article here. Basically, these brothers lived simply and saved. GBH said on Wednesday that the brothers, working-class guys from Malden who lived their whole lives in the three-family house where they grew up, are responsible for the organization's biggest unrestricted gift ever. How awesome is this! The value in buying a value property and staying there is huge. Key Takeaways The brothers lived a simple lifestyle. They made a significant charitable contribution. Li

Does this seem like a bold statement that can get me into trouble? It probably is. Since I am an agent who sees about 10 investment properties a week, my opinion might be different from people who are buying 1 house to live in, and are only doing it every 10 years. Summary of What Inspectors Do on a 3 Family in Worcester Do: Outside Look at the roof and determine approximate age Check the chimney Look at siding (paint), soffits, fascia, window frames, to see if it has any iss

Early in my economics classes they spoke of private and public goods. Public goods are provided by the government or by nature for the welfare of people without any cost. Private goods are goods that are produced and sold by private companies to earn a profit. School bussing is clearly a public good. Additionally, it is good for the environment (if that is something you care about). Pricing and Incentives of Riding the School Bus Let's look at the pricing and incentives of ri

Straight out of the Worcester Business Journal, here are our top 10 taxpayers. What do we see here? A group of taxpayers who can't leave no matter how high we raise the commercial tax rate. If anyone follows WorcesterMulti, they know that I complain all the time about how the dual tax rate (Residential taxpayers pay $15.22 per $1000 and commercial pays $33.34 per $1000). So, on a $1 million property, residential will pay $15,220 and commercial will pay $33,340 a year in taxes

You may start seeing articles talking about the Great Renovation. The housing stock in many places is very old. Worcester is the quintessential city for this. Since there are so few new or move-in-ready houses, these are bought up by end users (owner occupants for the most part). Who Buys the Junk? That could be you. Do you want to do a flip or a BRRR? These opportunities might be a career for you as there is so much older housing, and someone has to fix them up. Consideratio

Often people say you should use an investment agent/broker when you are buying an investment property. This is definitely something you should be doing. However, you need to be careful if you are working with an agent who is buying for her/himself as there is a conflict there. Key Questions to Ask Your Agent One of the first questions you should ask your agent is if they are actively buying properties. As an investment agent, I have access to a lot of off-market and pre-marke

I feel I must continue to beat the drum on this one. Check out this article. Read the article here If/When student loans kick back in, that will pull $18 BILLION out of the economy a month. The sad part is that during COVID, when people were stuck home not able to buy anything and saved money not driving or using their cars, they did not pay down their debt. Actually, these same borrowers increased their debt on other things. I do see this reducing the number of buyers in the

https://www.biggerpockets.com/... Let's revisit something from months ago and something we all knew was coming. Polar Park does not pay for itself. https://www.masslive.com/... As I mentioned in my prior blog post, it is great that we have Polar Park. It is a great place, but it doesn't make any money for the city. It has been the impetus for developers to see Worcester as a real place. Was $40-60mm too much for this? If it increases commercial development and brings long ter

Here is another great article from Banker and Tradesman: https://docs.google.com/document... We support these sentiments. Making Housing Affordable Making housing affordable is not just about creating "affordable housing". The city of Worcester is working hard to get developers to simply build more units. Yes, they are pushing new regulations to require a percentage of units be "affordable," but this isn't as important as some of those proponents think. The Impact of New Hous

Here is my blog from 7 months ago https://www.biggerpockets.com/... And here is an article with some thoughts from Barbara Corcoran, https://www.foxbusiness.com/... Corcoran's Insights Corcoran is singing my tune: "So you get a Mexican standoff going on, but things are changing," she said. "The people who are going out there and buying are finding they're overbuilding. They're having a hard time getting their hands on the house. And right now, what everybody's afraid of is th

When cities and towns require Stretch Code and LEED certified buildings, they unwittingly raise housing prices and contribute to gentrification. Essentially, these codes drive up the price of construction. That has two effects: Drive up the cost of buying or renting property Make projects unaffordable for developers Both of these raise prices and push out those who don't have the ability to afford the higher prices. This is happening in Boston, where prices for new condos are

There is a new term in the real estate lexicon, "RentVestor." These are people who are buying rental properties instead of primary housing. We have seen this in the past, when people from CA would rent in CA and buy a house in AZ as a rental home or a vacation home. They couldn't afford their dream primary residence, so they took advantage of an opportunity to get into the real estate market and leverage their returns. This is happening on a different scale now. Current Trend

If you follow me you will see that I have not posted in a while. It is not because I didn't have anything to share. It is because my son was playing Lacrosse at Loyola of MD this spring and I tried to get to all the games. Now I am back. Current Market Overview Inventory in Worcester is very low, with only 31 buildings for sale at the moment. Market Activity Activity is down, and there are less people at the open houses. What is Selling Certain things are selling: WPI propert

Reduce inflation, Have Student loan Buyers start paying again You can see from my post from over a year ago, I have been advocating that students start paying their loans for a long time. Well the time appears to have come. Impact on the Local Economy By my estimation, there are about 10,000 people in Worcester who have student loans they are paying. If we consider an average payment of $500 a month, this will result in: $5,000,000 a month being pulled out of the local econom