Best Place to Find Multi Family Properties

[Benoit Roddier]

Hello everyone. I recently joined BiggerPockets I am an international student from France currently studying at the University of Oklahoma. I have one more semester left and I am planning on house hacking a four-plex right after getting my degree. I am not sure where I'll be working after college but I wanted to get comfortable with analyzing properties so I wanted to get some advice from you all. 

What is the best search-engine for multi families properties? Do you personally look at more than one search engine? What exactly are you looking for to determine if an area on the rise or decline? 

Thank you for your time. I'm looking forward to interacting with you all.

[Andrew Johnson]

@Benoit Roddier As for search engines, I mess around them all.  I have alerts on them all.  I get those automated push-messages on my cell phone from the apps.  It's efficient but it's not like looking at the same property more than once kills me.  And it's something to scan through during cardio at the gym.  Loopnet is for commercial properties and you won't be able to house-hack those.  Not to mention that (for me) the response rate is achingly low if you try to reach out to a random broker that you have no prior interaction with.  

As for if an area is on the rise or on the decline you have basic demographic trends.  But (assuming you have a car) I'd also recommend you drive around neighborhoods.  It's really easy to see if there are rehab projects going on or not.  You can see how landlords keep up their properties.  You can look at crime heatmaps.  You could can drive through "borderline" areas at 2:00 a.m. and see how safe you feel (or don't).  You can ask your fellow graduates where they are looking to buy or rent after they graduate to see where that 'young, educated, white-collar' demographic wants to be.  In short, given you live there it's easy for you to do some ground work yourself that you can combine with online demographic data.

#BoomerSooner