Expanding my understanding of the Atlanta RE Market

[Danial Qureshi]

Hi everyone my name is Danial Qureshi and I'm relatively new to Bigger Pockets. I'm currently working as a Global Migration Analyst working for Colgate-Palmolive travelling on a weekly/monthly basis overseas, I'm currently looking for jobs back in Atlanta so that I can self fund and finally give myself better footing in the Atlanta Real Estate Market, to meet more of you and to ultimately learn and see how the real estate business functions. I currently own a condo in Sandy Springs which currently has one room being rented out while the other is occupied by my brother.

Although I plan on this being another source of income for myself to achieve financial freedom. My goal with real estate investing is to provide income for the other projects I would like to pursue. Such as helping out with charities and non-profits, achieving financial freedom for myself, & my family so that I can finally get my MBA at the university I want to go to without having to lose an income.

As for understanding the Atlanta real estate market, I've done some analysis ITP (Inside the Perimeter) & OTP (Outside the Perimeter). I wanted to know should I avoid the high crime areas? Or would you say that is probably my best opportunity to find better deals? I want to personally focus on single family/multifamily properties, near major universities and major shopping centers, but those areas seem to be overly saturated and I'm willing to step out of those areas, but if you have any tips or ideas that you guys are willing to share please do as I want to learn from your mistakes. God knows I've already made plenty haha!

From what I've heard on the BP Podcast I should be looking even outside of my target areas, what I want to know is how has that piece of advice helped you in the Atlanta area? 

In terms of rental rates how much should that factor in terms of my decision in targeting a certain part of Atlanta? Or should I analyze the property, street, neighborhood, proximity to malls, public transit, schools individually and not really care about potential rental rates? I guess this would lead to my next question where do I find quality tenants and what is the best way to screen for them?

In terms of treating Real Estate Investments as a Business what tools do you utilize other than the calculators on Bigger Pockets? The reason I ask is I wish to know what I can use to give myself better analytics to understand detrimental/beneficial decisions for the business as a whole. 

I'm already utilizing my standard financial statements (Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Statement of Cash Flows, General Ledger, Trial Balance, etc), but I've also created and I'm still working on a few tools to allow me to track and analyze overall trends in my real estate portfolio on a daily, monthly, and yearly scale.

I guess my final question would be what systems have you put in place which have allowed you to succeed as individuals/groups in real estate? Also is there any way to screen tenants online? In terms of legal documents is there a resource where I can find Landlord tenant agreements or am I getting ahead of myself here?

-Thank you in advance for answering my questions and being patient with me.