Are you investing in a dying state?

[Matt R.]

Are you purple or green? This map shows the net flow of personal interstate incomes. The top 3 income collectors are Florida, Texas and Arizona. If you could magically transport to your investments to another state...where would you go and why? 

thanks,

Matt

[Wes Shive]

I suspect the map/data is a bit too broad and unfocused for it to be very helpful in drawing any conclusions. I say this both because it is statewide and particularly because of the 10 year sample period.

For example, I'm in southern CA (LA and surrounding areas). Here, as with most parts of the country, prices went crazy during the boom to 2006 and then plummeted over the next couple years as the bubble burst, hitting troughs in 2009. Things traded sideways for the next few years. In the last couple years, some areas (ones saddled with a lot of bad loans that were hit the hardest) have doubled from their lows and areas that were more stable (generally nicer areas) have surpassed their 2006 highs.

As an investor, I correctly took advantage of this swing during the last several years and am continuing to see appreciation. And as a landlord, I didn't see much volatility in rental income. So it's hard for me see that CA's near-bottom ranking is an indicator of how one would do as a real estate investor.

One thought that I have is perhaps this map would be more useful if it gave a percent increase or decrease out of the state's total income. Absolute figures may lack a frame a reference so to speak for it to be very telling.