Looking for rental property down the road - interested in Fredericksburg, VA

[Huiya Xiao]

I joined BiggerPockets 5 or 6 years ago, but never pulled trigger on a rental property because of analysis paralysis and lack of education I guess. I looked at some townhouses near Lake Ridge, VA area even before that, but didn't buy any (regret:).

I recently caught the bug of real estate investing again, and really like the idea from Brandon Turner about searching for opportunities within 2-hour driving radias. I live in Herndon, VA, and by that criteria I'm looking at towns and cities like Fredericksburg and Winchester VA, Martinsburg WV, and PG, Anne Arundel county and Baltimore MD. I'll be looking for rentals with relatively good cash flow (good Rent to Price radio) and appreciation (secondary goal).

Understanding the challenging market condition currently, I'll probably wait until the market picture clears out a little bit and the numbers make more sense. In the meantime, I'd like to reach out to the BP community and connect with any real estate agents and contractors active in the areas mentioned.

Happy to be part of the BP community (again), and look forward to learning and contributing more here.

[Russell Brazil]

Quote from @Huiya Xiao:

@Russell Brazil thanks for your comment. I've seen many of your postings regarding the DC market and appreciate your perspective here. I just realized you were on one of the BP podcast episodes and I'll check that out. It's also a coincident that I was just listening to the very episode after yours.

Regarding risk and reward, I think I'm okay with medium risk and medium reward. Also curious why Baltimore is considered high risk. Is it because of investing in some C or D neighborhood, or more on the macro economic or demographic?

 Baltimore has the highest taxes in the mid atlantic by far. (The tax rate is literally triple DC's rate). A population that has declined from 1 million to about 500,000, and continues to decline. A corrupt local government. Corrupt police force. Declining industry and job base. Some landlord/tenant laws that are so anti-landlord that they border on the absurd, such as a tenant being able to sue their landlord on the 1st day they move in for lead poisoning, when they obviously could not have had that lead poising from your property. And dozens of other reasons. 

And that high risk, is why it has the highest yields in the midatlantic, and right up there with the highest in the country.