San Antonio, CO Springs, or FL- Where Should I Go??

[Andrew Martel]

Good Morning BP!

I'm looking for some advice. I currently own a home and will be moving next year sometime around March (I'm military). Right now I have a unique opportunity to push for a couple of areas and I wanted to know what your opinions on those place are - in regards to beginning REI. I can get San Antonio, CO Springs, or a FL location (Tampa, Ft Walton Beach, Cocoa Beach).

Here's what I am thinking for my strategy. The home I currently own was bought using the VA. I have bonus entititlements available which I was planning on using to purchase a forclosure property to live in. This will be my "practice flip" because I can live in it and work on it at the same time.

My main course of action will be buy and hold (more flips to come later possibly). I think (and your opinions are much appreciated on this) I should focus on cash flow. However I don't know if want to do multi family units or go the forclosure, fix and rent route. This purchase will be via a traditional loan or some other kind of financing. I'm using the remainder of my time at my current location to prep for action in this new area (research, savings, education, etc).

So initial research that I've done on the markets in each of the locations is as follows (please correct/advise me if I am wrong):

CO Springs- I've lived here before. Love the area, however home tend to be built in mass production with very little differentiation and close together. The taxes are low. Lots of military and professionals living in the area. Strategy might be to buy 3bd 2ba SFRs with a rental price range of $1200-$1600/mth (~120,000-160,000 purchase price).

FL- Haven't done much research in this area, only because taxes have kind of deterred me from the area. However, where I would move, would have a high military population, which is great for renting. Focus here would be the E5 - O4 BAH price rang of $1000-1600 / mnth.

San Antonio- This area, from what I've looked at so far, seems very promising. There are lots of forclosures in what I would assume to be nice areas based off of city-data. There is a lot of military and seems to be a booming town. However, I have never been to San Antonio, don't know the area as well as the other two locations, but am willing to take the leap if it looks promising.

So, any advice is appreciated. I would love to hear what you all have to say. Thanks for your advice!

-Drew