Young, Hungry, and Ambitious: How to Find Tenants???

[Ben Cranny]

Hello, I am a 21 year old trying to educate myself more on real estate investing and hopefully look into buying my first rental property sometime within the year 2022.  I have listened to many podcasts/books and think I am ready to make my first deal happen.  

My main question I have is, how can you tell if the market you want to buy in tends to rent well for SFH (single family homes)? I see a lot of houses up for rent in my area on all the different listing sites and I am not sure if this is a bad sign or not since I would be competing against a lot of different rental properties for tenants. My fear is that I buy a SFH to rent out and then I can't find anyone who wants to live their and pay me rent.

Follow up question:  I see a lot of articles mention that "the property is located in a B- neighborhood" what does the letter grade of different neighborhoods mean?  And is there a way to calculate that so you know which area you are buying in (A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+...)???  I understand that the grade represents how nice/favorable the neighborhood is, but is that just someone's opinion or is there a way to calculate that?  

Maybe these are silly questions to someone much more experienced, but I would greatly appreciate any advice, metrics to look at, or links to any additional resources that people have found on how to attract and maintain a tenant long term.  So happy I found Bigger Pockets, learning so much already.  Thank you. 

[Evan Polaski]

@Ben Cranny, how many rentals are available is completely dependent on your market and the ratings are 100% subjective.  Regardless you are overthinking it.  I buy in neighborhoods I would live in, and I buy houses, that I would live in.  My first two criteria when looking at a rental: would I live here, if need be? and would I be comfortable sending my wife here in the dark?

If I would live there and am comfortable sending my wife there, then I know others like me would be willing to live there, and as such have rarely had issues finding tenants for my properties.  

As for the properties you see on services, Kai offers an option, but in my market very few rentals are listed on MLS, and therefore would provide limited feedback. A simple way, since you are still doing research, is to look on Zillow (which is where I list all my properties for rent), make note of the properties listed, then look back a week later, and see how many are still listed, then again a week later, etc. In my experience, the only times I had issues renting a place was when I was asking too much for the neighborhood, i.e. $1,400/mo in a $1,000-1,100/mo neighborhood. My house was fully renovated, but lower end neighborhoods are a lot more price conscious and are not willing to pay a premium for a nicer place.