Best Cities to invest in

[David Rutledge]

Hi Everyone,

I am a CA resident and I am looking to invest in a buy and hold property outside of CA due to the expensive prices here.

I am looking for positive cash blow with the hope of an added bonus of long term appreciation. I am only looking at C+ areas and above and I am not interested in a huge rehab job. I also want to get into the market at below market value if possible (I am sure everyone does) 

 After a lot of research I have limited my options to a few cities in the south east that I feel fit my needs of cash flow and potential higher than average appreciation best. I am wondering if anyone in here has any particular thought and/or experience in the following markets that you may be able to advise an investor looking for positive cash flow with appreciation upside.

The areas I have narrowed it down to are:

Florida: Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Cape Coral/Fort Meyers

NC: Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham area

Any advice or insight at all into any of these areas for buy and hold investment advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks so much for your time.

David

[Julian Merchant]

I'm in a similar situation to you up in NorCal. I love CA but agree with you that it's prohibitively expensive to buy here. Cap rates are terrible compared to the places that you mentioned. The best value for rentals seems to be in the south - across the board. 

I know, personally, if I were investing in that part of the country, I would want to relocate there for a month or so for several reasons. You don't truly know the landscape of a place until you live there for a month. I know a flipper who does a lot of work in Ohio and he has a little place there where he spends a few months out of the year. Not a bad plan.

Also, you would have time to establish connections in a place that are invaluable. You can hit up the local meetups and RE groups to find a good property mgmt company. At the very least, you have boots on the ground to check out a property if you get into a pinch.

That being said, not everybody can or wants to pick up and move to Florida.

I can't remember where I heard this, but someone suggested that you should invest w/in 2 hours of where you live, including flights and time that it takes to travel to the airport. I think that's pretty sound advice, unless you hire a really great property management company that you've thoroughly vetted. You might want to check out the Inland Empire or Phoenix.

Hope that helps.