What do you think of purchasing a home in Little Falls NJ? (Passaic: short sales)

[GiantRutgersfan]

I am a single guy, no kids, no wife, no plans for kids in the near future.

I see one house in particular. I can see why it is priced low: its in a flood zone, only 2 bedrooms, very small yard, no garage (has large wooden shed), and the house is oddly positioned in relation to the neighbors house.

But it looks very nice (both inside and outside), is decently sized, is move in ready and doesn't NEED any work. very low taxes ($3,300) and a $159,000 asking price (short sale). Roof was done recently as well.


What do you think? I know those issues might hurt resale in the future, but I would not be opposed to being a landlord if/when i am ready to move. And with Montclair State being a short drive away, finding tenants shouldnt be that difficult

[USER876]

See when the last time the house got hit. Does the street flood often? When the house gets water in it is it 2" or 2'? Find out more.

[findinghope]

yeah i was going to say, have it really well inspected cause i just know that house was hit hard in the last 2 years due to flooding---badly. make sure there is no mold etc....

[alex27]

Born and raised in Little Falls - lived there about 30 years, growing up 1/2 block from the river.
Those houses along the Passaic are innundated often, basically anytime the river overflows.
Resale is always going to be low. Houses along Woodcliff Ave and in the other back section behind Zeliff Ave have traditionally always been in the low to mid 100s.
As for tenants, be sure you have a tight contract stating you're not responsible for water incurred damage.
Also check how much more house insurance you're going to have to pay as you will have to purchase flood insurance as well.

[LCMT]

You said you wouldn't mind renting the house out in the future but.....would there really be alot of people who would want to rent out a house that floods?
Might be hard finding a tenants.
Best websites to research before buying a home

[marye711]

I used to own and rent ouyt a house in the flood zone, when I put it in the papers I had a ton of calls, yes it flooded but I still made money on it.

[icibiu]

Hubby and I are house hunting and we found a couple of well priced homes in that area; we had already been looking in another flood zone (pompton lakes) so we weren't overly bothered by having to get flood insurance THEN we found out that those homes experiance MAJOR floods and quiet often. I can deal with 1 or 2 floods in the last 50 years with small damage, but two floods in the last three years with MAJOR water damage, no thanks. Keep in mind there are pumping stations right there next to these houses and they are still flooding so I'd be hard pressed to imagine the town can do anything else to prevent this. The price you mentioned is pretty low so you MAY be able to make some money off of it but ask yourself why the owners are in a short sale position in the first place, is it because they've spent tons of extra money evey couple years repairing flood damage? There are so many other short sales, forclosures out there right now, I think you can do better. Good luck!!

[luckyshoes]

I can't see why anyone would buy in an area that is known to have major floods. Really, houses like that should probably be abandoned and the land given back to the watershed.

With climate change happening, things could even get worse potentially as some parts of the country are going to get dryer, but the Northeast is probably going to get wetter and rainier.

[doerayme]

When we were house hunting, we found a house (foreclosed) in Little Falls that my husband had his heart set on however I pulled tons of pictures online of the type of flooding that goes on there and it totally changed his mind. I suggest you do a google search as well. The flooding is pretty serious (and relatively frequent) in this area.