Do house prices even matter when renting???

[Alex Smith]

Greetings all,

I am located in the Charlotte NC area and am wanting to build a portfolio of rentals. I only want to purchase single family, turn key or properties with minimal required repairs. This area has had houses that were 150k in 2015 appreciate to 200k as of this month. Most would call it a sellers market now, but who knows if values will continue to increase.

the price of houses in my target area would be between 150k and 250k and it would be very difficult to achieve the 1%. Most of my estimates look to be closer to .75% of purchase price in monthly rent. The only time the numbers work to the 1% is in very low income areas.

 I am trying to get a better understanding of the value/equity of houses. For example, if I buy a house today  for 200k, and 5 years later it increases to 250k. most people would say, “great, I made 50k.”; but, in order to capture that money, I would need to sell the investment house and do a 10-31 exchange. In order to continue with the rental income, then obviously I would need to purchase another property. The problem is that All properties in an area are relative in value, so when I would go to purchase another house, I wouldn’t actually gain anything because it would cost just as much to buy another house as I just sold the one for. 

So if a house will cash flow, does a house price even matter when all houses in an area are so closely priced?