Real Estate Investing and Property Management in West Chester PA
Residential property management in West Chester, PA involves serving two different rental communities.
The first community includes students who attend West Chester University. As certain geographic areas of West Chester do not allow student rentals, it is very important that you make sure what part of town your investment property is located. Student housing is very time consuming for property managers and requires extra man hours to serve their needs. For example, with student housing we get calls to change light bulbs, remove snow or ice, clean rooms and many other requests that we typically do not get from non-student tenants. As an investor you want to make sure that you have a property management company in West Chester, PA lined up to handle these issues or be prepared to handle them yourself.
Also, with student housing you will get a lot of turnover and most students stay one year and move out. So be sure to plan high tenant turnover when considering investing here.
The second community in West Chester, PA is non-students. This may include individuals that live in this very popular community or in some cases people that work at West Chester University. These types of tenants tend to be more mature and easier to manage the properties in which they reside. Additionally, they tend to pay rent on time and do not need nearly as mush maintenance or attention. As an investor this may be the better option, but these types of investment properties tend to cost more per unit.
The good news is non-students may live in your investment property for many years and reduce your vacant time.
West Chester, PA is a very popular community with lots of shops and restaurants in the downtown section. West Chester, PA is also the home of QVC, one of the largest employers in the area.
This town continues to be a very hot market for both sales and rentals. The average sales price for home as of November 2018 is $414,100. The average sales price is up 3.4% over the last year. The rental market is also seeing nice price appreciation. The average rental is $2,242 per month and is up 1.5% over the last month. This compares to the average rental in Philadelphia of $1,581 and nationally of $1,449. Given the strong popularity and strong employment in the area I would suggest this a great place for real estate investors to look for investment properties and above average returns.
