Buying in Memphis or Birmingham

[Jean Paul Rousseau]

Hi,

I am quite new on BP.

I am a french citizen living in France, in the Paris area. Last year, I created a Georgia corp. that bought two houses in Atlanta (80 000 $ each). Now I plan to use this corp. to make further investments. As I am far away, I intend this time to use turnkey companies (I plan to go to the States once a year maximum). For now I intend to pay cash because it seems too expensive to borrow in the States for a foreigner. (I look in France but it’s not so easy either because if I give a stock portofolio as a warranty, it has to be twice in value of what I borrow). In any case I intend to put around 200 000$ in cash. So I have several questions:

I investigate Memphis and maybe Birningham which are not too far from Atlanta and have a good rent to buy ratio. The drawback I see, is a decrease in population since 2 000 in those cities and a high crime rate. All depends of course of the area in which you are investing. Is investing there a good idea ?

With a 200 000 $ budget, should I buy two houses 100 000$ each or three houses 66 000 $ each?

Be sure I will appreciate your comments

[Mark Whittlesey]

My question is: Why not more in Atlanta?

Is there some problem there?

By branching out into more cities... it is going to force you to find more teams on the ground. I would think it would be easier to focus on 1 city and get one set of top notch people there. I guess you can eventually find good teams in any city.. but it is going to be more work for you.