Moving to New Orleans - What would you do?

[Dan Gerding]

Hey guys and gals,

I’m an aspiring investor from North Carolina.  I’m in the initial learning phase and still working out which strategy/niche is best for me (ultimately, I’m looking for cash flow).  My plan was to focus on learning and creating a business plan with the goal of making my first investment purchase in 8-12 months; however chances are high that I’ll be moving to New Orleans next month for a job opportunity and I was hoping that the BP community could offer some advice on my options.

• My move to New Orleans will most likely be temporary (~2 years) before moving back to the NC/SC area (Greenville, SC most likely).
• My company offers a fairly generous relocation package in which closing costs of a new home would be paid for by the company, but I would need to make a purchase relatively quickly.
• After selling my house in NC, I’ll have around 100k that I could invest with an annual salary around 95k.
• House hacking sounds like a potential option; however, my new job will involve a lot of short-notice travel which would make it difficult to do much property management myself.

I’m leaning towards purchasing a small/relatively cheap single family home in an area that is hopefully favorable to appreciation (any location suggestions?), putting the remainder of my cash into index funds for the next 2 years, saving as much as possible, and trying to prepare myself to make more meaningful investment moves when my work situation is more stable.  Since my goal/most likely outcome would be to end up in Greenville, SC I could also explore the option of buying property out of state while living in New Orleans.

Considering that I’ve just begun learning about real estate investing, know absolutely nothing about the New Orleans area (from looking through other forum posts, it sounds like a difficult area for a beginner investor), and I’d need to make a decision fairly quickly - what would you do in my shoes?