You can, just upgrade to a duplex 
I also forgot to mention with all 4 units rented out, it pays half of my mortgage/escrow on my new house too.
That’s what I did. Bought my place about a year ago at 23. Kept the entire driveway and 2 car garage for myself. Rent pays all but about $150 of my mortgage/escrow payment then roommates pay the rest. I’m able to save most of my take home pay and still live how I want. I’ll probably buy and rent or buy and move into another double before I even consider a single family home.
Really? Elmwood ave in Buffalo? Like 1800 block? Yeah, real nice area. Head down Grote street and tell me what you see. Every third house is boarded up. Old rundown industrial area. There’s a cozy little bar right there though that seems decent.
Maybe way up north by Kenmore ave it is a little better. Not sure exactly what block you are talking about though. Like I said before, there are PATCHES here and there that are decent, not much more though.
Sounds like you want to be smart with your money, but with all your location demands, you are going to make the tax man rich instead.
The first option sounds like the making/saving money option. If you like money that is your better option. However if you are going that route, get serious. Buy a North Buffalo double, low on taxes, rent out the other half, and pay a low amount a month to live there.
Second option is more the keeping up with the NYSpeeders option. Not so good on the wallet, but it is nicer living for sure.
At the end of the day, I would check into all the prices involved, including Taxes, insurance, resale value, etc. Sounds like you are on the right track, but when you mention Amherst and Clarence, I think of $600-800 a month thrown away on taxes, not to mention you could get that same amount in rent on the double and be well over a thousand dollars ahead monthly, not even counting the mortage payment.
X…
Yeah I hear slum lording can be a pretty sweet gig if you do it right. The wife and I looked into it a while ago, but it was just too much committment for us when we’re both already so busy. I guess it’s like anything else: risk + effort = reward.
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I guess I ought to reiterate what everyone else has been getting at too… Taxes in Kenmore and Tonawanda are fucking terrible. Taxes will cost you easily an extra 100-150 non-value-adding dollars a month there vs a quiet street in North Buffalo for basically the same property.
This guy gets it. It’s not about making money on a monthly basis, it’s about building equity.
No…it’s about both. Cash flowing is just as important or more important than building equity in this area. We won’t see the big increases that other parts of the country will. That’s why the cash flow is decent here.
Orrrr… Our stable-as-a-rock housing market provides a fantastic refuge from the fed stealing savings via inflation…
In most cases (unless you paid cash for the place) you won’t make much on top of the mortgage payment.
It’s a trade-ff. If the place is paid off, you get cash flow. If there is a mortgage, you’re building equity instead of cash-flow. In both options, you also yield some equity based on time and property values going up, but in Buffalo that’s not much.
Not the case in areas like North Buffalo. You can pick out many doubles that will easily cash flow 400-500/month with just putting 20-25% down. In that case youre cash-flowing and building equity through principal pay down.
And lol at Fry.
LOL at joester.
Going down elmwood on the left side there is multiple neighborhoods that are 500k+ houses and that is it. Take nottingham to amherst street that ENTIRE neighborhood as well is all beautiful out of most of our price range houses. Take depew to parkside and the parkside neighborhood is yet again another beautiful one. I know so many of the wealthy people that live in the city and I assure you they have nice neighborhoods. Feel free to come see my house and I will give you a tour of my neighborhood. Its truly barbaric with nichols, delaware park, the history museum and million dollar homes around.
Your argument is so retarded anyhow since even in the burbs there are shitty ass sections as well. There are ghetto ass wanna be thugs in shitty duplexes not far from my parents 350k house in Amherst. Don’t even get me started since I know of shitt areas in every suburb I can think of. Kenmore has fucking trailers(might technically be tonawanda?) depew, cheektowaga, west seneca, tomawanda, NT HAHAHAHAHA, all have shitty parts that I know of. Does that make them bad, shit no I know of beautiful streets in most of them as well. But I think your argument is swiss cheese to say the least.
Also not trying to turn this into a debate as this thread is for Beck and his situation. Beck feel free to pm me if you want this stuff cleaned up.
I’m going to go the double route. Preferably a 3/3 unit. Now I just need to figure out where I want to live.
On one hand, I’m young enough that a lot of my friends/cousins/employees are renting. I can just get someone I know to rent the double out. However, I’m still on the fence about owning any sort of property in the city of Buffalo. (sans N. Buffalo).
The Elmwood area is not an area I would want to live/own property near. My best friend’s parents live in a million dollar home on W. Ferry and my other friend lives in a 2 million dollar home on Tudor. 2 Blocks away is low income housing. I’m out. While their homes are very nice, I’d rather just not deal with it in the long run.
While I’m sure there are patches here and there that are appreciating, those areas aren’t filled with doubles or rental units. Not to mention the citys plowing and services are fucking JUNK.
I’ll pay a little more in taxes, especially in a better school district. Having a 3/3 unit, means you’ll most likely get families interested, meaning school district is a huge plus.
I’m not going to mince words…I’m from fucking Williamsville, I live in an upper-middle to lower-upper-class loft currently. I’m not moving into a mediocre level of a house 2 blocks away from jefferson ave. I prefer to be comfortable in my own surroundings, all the while paying the least amount of taxes possible. Ton/Kenmore/Amherst/north buffalo allow me to do this.
I’m not looking to make money while living there. I’m looking to increase equity with as little out of pocket on my behalf monthly. When I move out 2-3 years, it will then become a money maker. Not a huge amount, but it’ll only help me down the line.
I’m only getting a chunk of this information from someone who currently owns 4 doubles in the kenmore/tonawanda area.
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If you see my first couple posts, I mention MiddleSex. I would KILL to live on Middlesex, or Depew st off of main… SHOOTER fucking houses. However, I’m not buying a house upwards of $750k.
If I was buying a million dollar house in WNY, it wouldn’t be in the city of Buffalo though.
I know exactly where you live, I’ve delivered to your house before. Well not exactly “delivered”. I had to leave a yellow delivery notice because on your street we are not allowed to leave things out in the open, and noone answered the door. Has to do with these things called driver follow-ups (ie: packages get stolen). Your house is one of the nicer houses on your street and looks recently sided, beige vinyl. You want to show me around your neighborhood? You can’t even park in the street in your neighborhood because every damn spot is taken. It’s a damn sea of cars down one side of your street every day.
I agree that there are shitty sections everywhere, but the burbs are much better. Gee let me guess. You are talking about Kaymar right?
I don’t think anything either of us has said is offtopic to the OP. He wants to know about places to live. We just have a difference of opinion on neighhborhoods.
It is called the city Joelster. You burbs people always see it one way and city people always see it another. It is natural many people don’t agree on many topics. I just get annoyed when burbs people group the entire city as bad when that is a far cry from the truth. There wouldn’t be all of these 750k+ houses beck mentions of if these people didn’t see the benefit of the city. Ugh my day is kind of busy though so I have to get going. See my poor city ass has to take my new benz in for service 
a benz going in for service? no way
srsly
My apartments are far from slum loarding, but yes, if done right, it can be a sweet gig.
Since we’re on the topic of equity, I’ve already built up about $80K in the last few 4 years with both houses.
i saw option 1… if you’re comfortably within your budget range you can afford to under-price the second unit in favour of a good tenant.
when we bought i was renting the basement apt. for $600 a month and man it was awesome… so easy to get used to home ownership that way.
You’re young, you don’t know what you want yet from your permenant home yet even if you think you do. Ease into things and cover your ass with some rental income so that your first real estate investment is bullet proofed.
good luck… and i want an invite to the house warming party