Hi
I’m aware Aussies and Kiwis have been buying in numbers in Buff for at least 2 years now and it is coming up 1 year since Steve and Dave put out their press release that they too had bought a number of +ve CF IP’s there as well.
After 12 months personally, our investing results have been a mixed bag, best described as, some great, some good and well ….lets say a couple that are just plain ugly.
As enough time has past, I’m interested in feedback on those that took the plunge, either on their own or via the likes of GRE ect, with a buy and hold strategy and if they have delivered the sort of consistant results they were after.
regards
tonyTony,
I originally went for buy and hold starting with fixer uppers. On that score properties shave performed well with the exception of one that I bought (not through DASA) retail now sold. of a guy up there that is selling to ozzies. I was fortunate enough to kick off with DASA using there fixer upper formula but they don’t do that anymore. Properties came in on budget and have been fully rented since.
Changed plan and decided to take the equity gain that was created with fixer uppers. Must admit the gain after tax is probably not worth the effort buy and hold seems to work best up there.
The admin effort and slow progress that WNY business seem to be used to has been a wake up call. Some properties take up to 6 months to close!!
Hi Tony
The past 12 months have been interesting for us as we have had times we felt like pulling out of NY State completely as different issues have arisen, have worked our way through them i feel more confident about Buffalo that i did 6 months ago.
i purchase my first property in Buffalo in Jan 05. So far i’ve been very happy with it (bardon Knows this property- 216 Hoyt st). When i bought it, it was the middle of Winter and the roof was covered with snow. I was told by the seller that it needed to be replaced . Well months later my PM emailed and said the roof needed replacing he got 2 quotes which were incredibly high. Fortunately the guy i bought it from, Dan, fixed the roof for less than 1/2 the original estimate. I say this because i feel that there are lots of people ready to over quote prices to us as Aussies so be careful.
One issue i’ve seen as the Biggest problem in Buffalo as a concern for not only myself but others of our clients who have bought there is the quality of property management. The one we mainly use was refered to us as “a good manager”. After 12 mnths i think i would rate him as poor. Having said that i don’t doubt he is better than others in Buffalo. We are now recommending/using a new property manager that 3 of our client have been using for about 6 months and they are all very impressed with her. So hopefully we have the weakest link in the chain fixed up. This property manager (who Bardon also knows) has a waiting list for properties, demand is so strong.
I’ve noticed prices rising over the past 12 months. And i’ve had some good capital growth now. I know my brother who has 4 properties has had independant esimates that his properties have risen about 10K in the past 6 months. Buying Demand is still strong and our mortage broker says demand from the UK is increasing, so hopefully we will get more price appreciation , which is the icing on the cake.
I’ve also noticed a lot more US buyers active in Buffalo also, which is making it harder to buy that good deal.
I’ll continue to aquire more properties in Buffalo through 2006, while we can still get them cheaply. having said all that i’ve got more money tied up in Texas which is also a fantastic market.
regards westan
Over 100 deals done in the USA in 2005
Buy in the USA email me at [email protected]
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