High Cash Flow / Low Appreciation in Suburbs

[Eric Swenson]

Hi All, my local market (Central Massachusetts) is pretty overheated right now.  Junky triple deckers going for 350-400k, some sight unseen, a lot of cash offers.  So I've started branching out further into the suburbs and what I see is a lot of towns where you can buy a good cash flow deal, like 220-280k with rent around 3500-4000 a month, but where there's likely little appreciation.  Many of these towns also have little to no population growth (none have declined that I've seen yet).  Should I be weary of this, or just go for the cashflow opportunity and factor in doubled vacancy rate on the OPEX?  Keep in mind this would be my first deal, so I think there's definitely value in just getting that first property, and these ones would seems to make great cashflow guaranteed in the next 5 years.

[Derek Harris]

Originally posted by @Thomas J. Budka:

@Derek Harris hi Derek. New to investing here. What do you use to perform a market analysis? How are you compiling all the information and what resources are you using?

Thomas, there are many resources out there. I recommend the following: BLS (for employment stats), Census Bureau (for population, income levels, housing, etc.), and Datausa.io. Additionally, most municipalities have useful information on their sites. If you plan on investing in Texas, I recommend using Texas A&M University's Real Estate Center.