Thinking of Relocating to South East

[Edgar Martinez]

Quick background & a few things to keep in mind:

My wife and I are in our late 20s. We have been working towards reducing a lot of our debt in order to buy a duplex (and you know the rest). We also have a 7 month old. We both working at architecture firms but are not licensed yet. I’ve also been a real estate agent the past few years. We’ve both spent many years (me almost all my life and my wife a little over half her life) in New York State. Earlier on we lived in and around New York City but for the last 8 years we’ve been living in the Buffalo, NY area. Lastly, my ultimate goal is to become an architect and developer.

Where are we now?:

So we’ve been kicking around the idea of moving. I’m kind of tired of the Buffalo weather and we haven’t had much luck on the investing side of things. We don’t have a lot of financial resources and (in my opinion) it’s pretty hard to find a deal that would safely work with hard money here (but still need some finances as hard money lenders don’t give out 100% of purchase and 100% of rehab lol). Like everywhere else in the county prices of both homes and contractors has skyrocketed.

Some relocation options we are considering:

1) moving back closer to NYC since we have family. We currently have no family in the area, having some family around is a big thing for my wife. My wife also has an opportunity for her to relocate within the same company.

2) Charlotte, NC. We recently visited, you can’t go a few blocks without seeing some sort of new development. Could be great for our careers but would likely be even harder to get started investing ourselves. Plus no family in the area.

3) Atlanta Metro Area. As I write this, in north east of Atlanta. We both like it, we see a ton of development, and I have an aunt here (not a ton of family but it’s something). We probably wouldn’t move into the city of Atlanta itself but slightly outside of that matters to anyone.

4) a possible although seemingly long shot is we don't move and keep on our initial path towards homeownership/house hacking/and possible BRRRR'ing.

Looking towards the future & other random thoughts:

Is it worth the move south from an investor’s perspective? Obviously if we moved now it would be pretty late to get into the game and with some sort of correction bound to happen at some point in the next number of years, I’m just not sure if it’s a good idea to move now. Or maybe is now the right time to move? So we know the areas and hopefully make some connections that will propel us post market correction. Is all the development sustainable? Just driving around Gwinnett County, GA all I see are large multi-unit apartment buildings and tons of townhouses. I’ve been trying to do some research on things like absorption rates and market outlooks and most of the free info I can get seem to think population & job growth will be enough to sustain whats coming into the market. There’s a lot of other things and questions floating around in my head on this subject but I’ll leave it here for now.

I’d appreciate anyone’s input, particularly anyone who found themselves in my shoes recently or anyone who is currently actively investing in these or similar areas.

Thank you all for your time in advance.