Is South Orange, NJ Good for Rental Properties? Town Tour & Investment Guide

So you're thinking about investing in Northern New Jersey, you're not exactly sure where to go. Well today's video I'm going to be going over one of my favorite towns and it has to do with college rentals against NYC direct commuters. I swear they're fighting one another over these properties and what do you think happens when you get two people that collide that both want one property? Well you got it. You get some huge rents and that is the name of the game especially if you're looking to invest in real estate. My name is Sean McIntyre. I'm the house hacking realtor of Northern New Jersey. I make videos like this to make sure you are on the fast track to your real estate investing goals so you don't have to pay the stupid tax that I had to pay when I first started out. So let's go right into it and deep dive on South Orange, New Jersey. You know I absolutely love this town and we pulled up the map so you're going to be seeing all that. Exactly where the proximity is, how to get into the city, where your university is, the places you want to go and the places you want to avoid because at the end of the day it's a very very beautiful town. Love the town but if you're not going to collect rents in certain areas, you're not going to attract tenants in certain areas, you're probably going to want to stay away from those spots and you want to find the ones that are a little bit more desirable for the tenants. So let's go right into it, into the map. Lots and lots to talk about in this video. Okay so including I've got South Orange students right now that are actually looking to rent a property for $6,500 and that's just one half of a duplex that my client bought for under $800,000. Combined with the other half, that is well well well above the 1% rule and guess what he bought it just this past year. So these are real life numbers that you can actually hit in Northern New Jersey if you're looking at things a little bit differently. That's why I love creative rental strategies. But this is all about South Orange. You know exactly what to expect, where to go, and what is happening here. Let me zoom out a little bit on the map so you know exactly where we are here in proximity. I always like to make New York City the focal point here. Boom. Here's NYC and here is Maplewood and South Orange. I say Maplewood because they're kind of like brother sister towns. Different police forces but different communities but they share the same high school. They're very hand in hand. They both have NYC direct trains. But we're going to be focusing mainly on South Orange today. So here we are. The one flaw I will say with this is that there is no major highway that is coming through. So when you're going to get there you do have to take some back roads. Boom. Let's get this map. So look. 280 is right here. This is Route 280. Boom. And then here is Route 78. So look. Maplewood is right here in the middle of both of those. So yeah. You're going to have to take some back roads to get over there. Not the end of the world. You're 10-15 minutes away from a major highway. But really what makes this so unique and why they get compensated is, as I said earlier, it's got the NYC direct train. So let's dive a little bit deeper on that. Go in here. Zoom in a little bit. As a matter of fact, if I go boom and then I go bam, it's going to speed it up. There we are. So right here you can see this is the train line that comes right through town. And that makes it very convenient. So boom. Here's a stop here. Bam. And then this is the Maplewood stop right here in the center. Can't really beat that. That is pretty impressive. Oops. Except I zoomed out. So kind of tough to see there. Boom. Bam. And then there's another train line right here in town as well. So South Orange has two train stops, which is great. Boom. Some notable streets that you want to keep your eyes out for is going to be the Valley Street here. It goes right through. Kind of runs parallel with the train. Train line. And then you're going to want to have this 510 that goes right up to the University. Okay. So University is going to be right up over here. And that's really going to be the hot spot. So where you got the train station down right here. Believe it or not, once you kind of pass over to Walton Ave area, it is not the most desirable for rentals. Up here, not so much happening. This is more residential. Obviously here, you're very far away from town. Everything in this proximity, you are in walking distance. If you are within this area to the train station and to the University. So that's where you want to be for hotspots. There's a lot of multifamilies, a lot of that going on. Let me erase that. I got a little crazy with my screen there. Bam. So yeah, when you're looking at South Orange, moving a little bit closer, this whole proximity here that is within University and train station is where you're going to want to be. What makes this so unique is that you have the opportunity to come through, walk to the downtown, walk to the train, walk to the University. These are some of the hotspots over here. I got clients on all of these streets, 3rd Street, 4th Street, Academy Street. You know, it's called Academy Street because of the proximity to the school. Makes sense. Rig place. All these things that, you know, great. So, you know, students come here, they'll walk on over. I'm actually going to be zooming in a little bit more so you can see exactly what it is that I'm talking about here. Some of these places. Let's see if we can find a nice, you know what? Let's go down here. Boom. We got a G.I. Road cam. Why not? Let's see. All right. So we have the map view here. So you know what it is. Now look, Irvington Ave is a little bit busier of a street, but all of these side streets are just great for the rental market. So let's go on here. We're going to go on. Boom. Keep on going. Go down. Yeah, I'm actually going to go down one of my favorite streets here because it's so close to the school. You see, even in the photo here, you see people with backpacks. My guess is they're students of some sort. But go down to Riggs here. Now, Riggs is great because you have just beautiful multi-families there, all multi-families here. You know, maybe a couple single families tossed in, but most of the part, it is multis. And now the university is right over here behind the school, or behind the street. But one of these, here's actually one of my client's places, and this one's really cool. Actually, a really good one to talk about because at the end of the day, this property here, there actually is no living room in the property, but it's a three-bedroom, two-bath. And we're getting, I want to say, $3,600 and now $3,800 for the upper unit without a living room because it's got some kids on the track team that are renting there. And you know, they're renting paying top dollar. Lower unit, two-bedroom, one-bath. They're wanting around $3,000. I mean, these are normal rents. They would not be this high if there wasn't a college demand, but what will happen is students are like, you know what? Do I want to spend the rest of my time in a dorm where I have to share a bedroom with two or three other people and all fight over a bathroom, no kitchen, nothing? Or pay actually much less to live off campus and kind of have some freedom? So we get very, very high rents. I've got data and clients doing this all over town, but it's really, really unique because at the end of the day, they're paying a lot more to us as the landlord, but they're saving a lot of money themselves because student housing is not cheap. The university really charges, so we can benefit from that, okay? So yep, you're going down here now. So another good thing about this is you see the parks and everything like that. You know, while maybe you're considering house hacking in town, you want to know what's happening here. There is a lot to do. We've got the parks and everything like that, and don't worry, I'm going to be going to the downtown a little bit, so stay tuned for that, and that's really, really, really a hot spot because you're going to get to see the train station, all that stuff. But yeah, you know, the beautiful parks all over the place, so you get the Frisbee going on. You got, you know, soccer, sports and everything. It is great, so you'll see all that. Now you go up here. This is going to be a little bit closer to the university. Obviously, you see all the restaurants and all that stuff going on, and once you go the other way, it gets a lot more restaurants, but you see here's Seton Hall. So, you know, it's all fenced in, but they've got multiple entrances for the students, so they've got a front gate, a back gate all over here, so it is very easy for students to access and come in, and now we get over here. We're starting to get a little closer to Irvington, East Orange area, but the rentals are still kicking butt. I'll actually go past one place over here that I'll show you, one of my clients, that he's killing it. I mean, he's north of $6,000 in one of the units as well. Bam. You see right here, the whole time, this is the university that we're passing, so awesome sidewalks. Very convenient. You know, it's safe. It's easy for walking, so all these over here, they're, you know, they're wonderful properties because they're going to rent. You know, that place is pretty huge, geez, but you see one of them right over here. These are all actually student rentals I'm going to show you in a minute here, including this one here. You know, this one, really, really nice property. This is student rental, student rental, student rental. Oh, wow. Actually, my client's property. They changed the signing and everything. It doesn't look like that anymore, but yeah, yeah, he's got the upper unit. He's getting north of $6,000. The lower unit, I want to say something like $4,000. It comes to the basement. I mean, when we got this place, they had the beer pong and everything set up. It was crazy. This is where you need to have an expert to come in to help you, and it's so crucial because at the end of the day, you don't want to have it be a party house because a party house is going to get you as a landlord in trouble. You want to make sure you have systems in place where you can attract quality students that are not going to destroy your place, aren't going to get those police calls, those ordinances and everything like that when people are partying hard. So you want to do proper screening. You get the co-signers. That is very crucial. I'm signing up one right now where I have the co-signers are sending me everything, their proof of income, their credit score, because they're the ones that are actually, if the students were to default, the co-signers are going to be there to pay for this. So we have systems to make it very, very safe. If you want to do college rental and you want to learn a little bit more about that process, I always say hop on a call 973-221-9131, book a call with me any single time, and we can dive deep. It doesn't even matter if you want to. You can honestly text this number right now. Even if it's 2 a.m. in the morning, it doesn't make a difference. I will get back to you and yes, it is me. It's not AI, it's not a computer, it's not, there we go, it's much easier to see now. It's not some random person. It is me that will get back to you. Maybe AI will say something, but you will get to me at some point, okay? So yeah, so text me to move, have college rentals, and have more comments and discussions about that, because I know you probably have a lot going through your head, but I can tell you this much. We do these very successfully. We get really very good desirable tenants in there that pay on time, but there's plenty of places, plenty of places that don't. I'll show you some over here where, you know, I've been into some of these properties. As a matter of fact, kind of to the point, when we first went in here, this was all beer cans in the basement and some crazy stuff going on, and I think I know why the landlord was selling, because he probably was sick of it, okay, and I don't want to see you be sick of it. I want to see you collecting big time for years to come, but it comes down to screening and all that kind of stuff, so I want to put you on the fast track. If you'd like that, and you want to be on the fast track to financial freedom or your investment goals, why don't you hit the like button, because that tells me that you really are into this, okay, and you're serious about everything, okay, and I know you are. Okay, so let's keep moving along here and check out that downtown and along with some other places on this map here, and you know what, let me maybe fast track this a little bit more, actually, boom, okay, continuing here on the tour here, actually one of my favorite places popped up, a really, really good deli. It's got arguably one of the debatable spots in town of one of the best sloppy joe sandwiches. I'll show you that in a minute once we get down there, so stay tuned for that, but here we are. Now we're going away from the university going towards a train station, and you see there's a lot happening in town. They're going to have restaurants, breweries, you're going to have a little bit of everything, the pizzerias, you know, we got a bagel shops, all that kind of stuff, but this is great. You see a lot of families, you see college crowd, whatever, you see a little mix of everything going on here in South Orange downtown. It is really, really, really well done, very convenient, so it plays to a lot of different characters per se, where sometimes it's like, you know, I've literally lived in towns where my wife and I would go out on a Friday night, and it would be happy hour at, you know, seven o'clock at night because the town is dead. Here in South Orange, you're going to have that vibe, you're going to have college bars, you're going to have a little bit of everything, so, you know, depending on what you're looking for, you'll be able to find it here in South Orange. You see here is the train station coming up, and you see a lot of people just always walking in this direction because they're going to be taking the train, but what's so great about this is that you get right off the train station, you walk down to these spots, we got the Chris's here, really good, boom, and then you got, you know, the brewery is literally right next to the train station, so imagine just getting right off the train and go and have a cold beer or whatever it is you want to do, enjoy yourself, you get all that here, there we go, boom, really awesome down here. Parking and parking garages, they got parking spots, so you got a little bit of everything, normally finding a parking spot isn't too difficult, it does get busy, but it's not impossible per se, where it's like, you know, when I'm in the city and I'm in NYC and you go to find parking, it is not always easy, so here we are here at the parking lot, boom, there you see some free spots there, as is, they don't really charge anything crazy as well, you know, they'll have a little hourly rate, but it's a couple bucks, nothing wild, so boom, let's go underneath the train station here, now look, this is where I'm saying now, I'm going away, oh, can I go under there, what's going on, come on, go under the train station, oh geez, what's going on here, alright, so here we are, we went underneath the train station, you see the train station is right here behind us now, oh, there's a train going across, really cool, that's the bridge there, I see a couple more restaurants, Tito Burritos, always good, always like that, it's a nice little place to get some wings and burritos, so here we are, now this is where I'm talking about, where you stop seeing the multifamilies as we go up here, now, where we've been going this whole time, all the side streets have multifamilies, much, much more desirable for tenants, as you come up here, it's going to be a lot more residential, traditional residential, where you're not going to have those commuter style rental properties, even though it is close to the train station, this is not as much going on, a couple of these guys over here are multis, but you see, as we go further away, it's more residential, single family type homes, all right, now I want to go show you over that one spot I was talking about, the really, really good sandwich shop, definitely want to know about that, but as we keep going along here, I'm going to show you, if we come back now, there's a train bridge, we're going back towards town, back to some of these hot spots here, going on up on over here, going towards Academy Street, which is always produced very well, what is it with the train bridge, it doesn't let me go underneath bridges on Google Maps, who knew, all right, bam, let's just hop right to it, Town Hall Deli, yeah, love it, you got to go in now, look, I love Town Hall Deli and I love Milburn Deli, it is a huge debate in town, if you've heard of one of them, why don't you comment below and tell me which one you like more, but you know, they both have really, really good sloppy joe sandwiches, if you know what a sloppy joe is, you know, tell me, once again, comment below, but it's a pastrami and all that kind of stuff, layered onto a sandwich, they do a really good one, but it's like the debate, which one is better, and I like them both, but I want to know which one you like better, so always comment below if you have anything, and obviously you can comment below on any questions, on any things about these towns, if you have questions on the properties, questions about everything, and obviously, so you can stay up to date with everything, and you don't miss out on future videos when they come out, you want to make sure to click subscribe, because that is going to be able to keep you up to date, so you don't miss out when videos like this come out, especially as I'm sharing more ones, like how to get the one percent rule, and how do you get, find a cash cow, you don't want to miss that video, do you, and obviously I'm going to have more town tours, and all that kind of stuff, so you are the first to know, you'll want to click subscribe, my map is like telling me maybe I should just end this thing, because I don't know what's going on right now, it is not moving, but that was South Orange, and there's a lot more to dive into, that's why it's always good to have a conversation, dive deeper, learn a little bit more about your needs, if you're into college rentals, and you want to get those really, really, really high rents, definitely, definitely want to chat, and have a conversation, because you don't want to be guessing how to do it, because like I said, there are properties that are no-go's, that do not make sense, but there are properties that absolutely kill it, matter of fact, I have a tenant right, or client right now, who has a park, has a property getting over five thousand dollars per unit, with no parking, how many towns do you see that in, that's unheard of, so there are strategies you want to have conversations about, there are properties that make sense, there's properties that you're not the best, okay, so in order to learn a little bit more about that, that's where you have a one-on-one, and I dive deeper with all this, so you can learn a little bit more about what it takes to be a house hacker, or a cash cow landlord in these towns, we'll see on the next video, check this one out, you're probably gonna want to check this one out, yeah, yeah, right there, that video, see ya.