Columbus, Ohio - Buy and Hold Rental Properties??

[Josh Madruga]

Hello BP Community,

I'm a REI out of Central California, with multiple SFH invested locally. I am looking to make the jump to start investing out of state I've been researching a few different cities across the country and Columbus, Ohio keeps popping up. The prices look pretty good from afar, and the other demographics look pretty solid (job growth, population growth, crime decrease, etc)

Is anyone out there buying and holding in Columbus?? Just wanted to know if the quality of homes that are listed online are good investments, or is everything that's cheap in really rough neighborhoods..  What neighborhoods/suburbs are you having success in, and are you buying single family homes, or multi family. Thanks guys!

[Robert Ellis]

Originally posted by @Josh Madruga:

Hello BP Community,

I'm a REI out of Central California, with multiple SFH invested locally. I am looking to make the jump to start investing out of state I've been researching a few different cities across the country and Columbus, Ohio keeps popping up. The prices look pretty good from afar, and the other demographics look pretty solid (job growth, population growth, crime decrease, etc)

Is anyone out there buying and holding in Columbus?? Just wanted to know if the quality of homes that are listed online are good investments, or is everything that's cheap in really rough neighborhoods..  What neighborhoods/suburbs are you having success in, and are you buying single family homes, or multi family. Thanks guys!

Hi Josh, here's what I would say. With 30k+ homes in columbus a year (single fam), there's definilty a lot more opportunities that way. I just put a single family under contract for a client, the median home in the area is 160k and this is remodeled at 135k and the comps show it's at like 180k value. just an investor that had to unload it quickly. He'll rent it out and easily have appreciation. It's in hungarian village and appreciation year over year there was 10% plus. I think buying SFRs gives you more appreciation potential and less competition. Areas like 43224, 43207, 43123, 43211 (North of Hudson), 43219 (certain areas), 43206, 43222 among others are some of areas that SFR buyers and investors are investing.

In terms of multifamily, I would agree that it's competitive. But if you are moving quickly, there are still plenty of deals to be had all over the city. As of today there are 158 properties for sale active in the columbus ohio multiple listing service. About 4 new listings per day come on the market for multifamily. so not a lot to look through each day if you are serious. 959 properties on the multifamily side closed in the last 12 months in central ohio or about 2-3 per day. Same zips as above are some of the great ones to keep an eye out in. For multifamily i'd focus on stuff newer than 1950 so your maintenance costs are lower. Something i've learned from rehabbing 25+ properties. 

There are a lot of great meetups for investors to go to if you want to network and there are guys doing deals every month. So yes, plenty of buying and holding going on :) Welcome to the forums and I hope this helps!