Recommended cities for buy and hold?

[Trent Lee]

Up until this point I’ve bought and held residential properties, all cash. I’m ready to start expanding into multi family and wanting to hear recommendations for what cities long term, buy and hold, investors look at?

What is the criteria to determine a city is viable and what resources do you use to research and confirm?

[Alex Craig]

To take this thread to the next step, these are the cities to research.

• Little Rock -- hot right now, we have had 4 other Memphis TK providers follow us here. Well not really follow since we are locally owned
• Memphis -- a household name for investments -- several TK providers operating here
• Birmingham, AL -- cash flows good--seems like this market has come on strong the past 5 years
• Jackson, MS -- I hear a lot of investors going here and getting good cash flow. Personally, not a big fan of the city in general, but that is just my opinion of the state of MS.  I am sure this will get me scolded by the MS faithful here
• Columbus, OH -- I see good TK providers operating here
• Houston/Dallas -- I see these on a lot of the affiliate websites, but my feedback is property taxes are high and cash flows are not good.  
• Indianapolis -- this one has been around for a while
• Cleveland -- I know zero about this market, but James Wise is active on BP. He would be the resource for you

There are quite a few multi-market 3rd party providers who can present several other markets.  If you are on the fence, they could help you find the market that is right for you.