Depressed Area

[Joseph Walker]

Greetings;

My wife and I relocated to a small Maine town. There are about 3000 people in town. We are new to REI but can buy a 3 unit rental for less than 60k that immediately provides cash flow of about 600/mth. Maybe more.

The issue we are concerned with is likely limited appreciation potential, lack of a property manager here in town, and a motivated seller. If the property is fully rented (and it is fully occupied) why are they selling?

Any input is appreciated.

Joe and Vimi

[Andrew Ware]

Most of Maine has limited appreciation. That's just the nature of rural communities. About all you can do is force appreciation by purchasing distressed. But the upside is they can cashflow really well.

Where Calais is kind of the gateway to that part of Canada and the biggest town in the area you'd think it'd be fairly stable. But I don't know what the mill closure does to that area. If an area becomes a ghost town it doesn't matter how cheap you just can't sell it. But if it cashflows well you won't really want to. I live in Gardiner but I might as well be 3000 miles away. You need to become very knowledgable about trends in pricing and jobs in your farm area.