Dallas/Houston/Atlanta for multiple family investment - 1st time home buyer

[Beril Joel]

Hi All, 

I read lot of post in BP and it was very useful and trustworthy.

I am a family man living with spouse and kid ,  living in a rental apartment for $2000 per Month at Atlanta, GA. 

For more than a year I have been thinking about investing on multi family (duplex or triplex or quadruple). I have 9 to 5 job with decent credit score (725 to 750). 

So, my first advice from wise ppl over here is : Dalla/Houston TX /Atlanta GA which  place is best (as per current suitation 2023 )for buying multifamily, Living in 1 unit renting other units (long term or short term) to cover mortgage as well as for future wealth creation. 

I wanted to utilise FHA loan 3% down, 7% interest.

My most consideration here is now ,since i want to buy with FHA , i need to stay in 1 unit with my family. so i need to think many factors like school ratings, safe neighborhood, high rental demand place(where tenants occupancy will not be issue) , less natural disasters, less gun shots ext.

I never visited Texas, but if it will be good for investment , then i would love to relocate as my company is also located in plano. 

I hear lot of good things about texas like no state tax , less property tax , less petrol price ,less cost of living ext.  except hot climates on July. 

on other hand Atlanta also is very hot but has 4 session and has lot of trees. 

Also i think Houston has near by beaches.  

Its really hard to make decision. I would  really like to get best advices from experts here. If Texas then I would first take rental apartments in Plano , TX and look for multifamily. 

And One more  thing I noticed when i was searching multifamily in Zillow, in Dallas / plano / Houston i never got separate unit duplex or triplex. Most of them is like single family having common hall , which i don't want due to kid and family privacy. 

What would be average rental income we can assume we will get per unit in Dallas/ Houston/ Atlanta GA , I need to buy multi family calculating these numbers so that every month it should not be burden for me paying for mortgage, property tax , pmi ext. 

And last but not least. How to find a genuine real estate agent or broker who can help buy me a best multi family property which will cash cow! I know there are lot of real estate agents , brokers , realtors here in BP but honestly I heard many sad stories from my friends about realtor who push non profit house to buy for Thier profit  😞. Sorry but this is very important when comes to buying property. 

Thanks in advance for your help and support to start my investment journey.

[Josh Bowser]

Hey Beril - welcome to BP!

I can't really speak to the Dallas & Houston markets other than I have heard they are booming right now. I don't think you could go wrong in Dallas/Houston/Atlanta.

Couple thoughts!

1. You're credit score will likely qualify you for a 5% down conventional loan. There are new guidelines that makes this possible for small multifamily now which is great! If you can qualify for a conventional - it will make your offers more attractive to sellers. Seems like your first step will be talking to a lender to see what you can qualify for.

2. General rule of thumb, the better school districts are in the northern parts of the suburbs. Gwinnett county schools are typically viewed as the 'best'. The 'best' schools also come with higher real estate prices. For example, small multifamily properties start out around $360-$380k for a duplex in an area like Lawrenceville. Austell/Mableton - you can get into a duplex for around 280k-300k right now.

3. Residential Investment Real Estate does not cash flow in Atlanta right now unless you're putting a 35-40% down. Please keep that in mind when you're looking at properties in Atlanta! House hacking a multifamily will be helping to offset your cost of living.

Would love to help you out if I can - feel free to reach out if you have any questions!