Building a Cleveland team (focus: agents & property managers)

[Sandy Metivier]

Hi Cleveland folks!

We are a queer married couple from San Francisco looking to expand our REI portfolio in Cleveland. We led with that detail about our identity as lesbians because we want to build a gay-friendly team and avoid any friction in this area down the road. Another important value for us is that they not be racist, which sadly comes up a lot in real estate.

Okay, on with the actual ask... We have REI history in vacation rentals, and now want to focus on long term buy and holds for cash flow. We are interested both SFH and multi-family properties. To start we looking for good deals on properties that would not need much improvement to rent out. Later down the line as we have a good team in place we may be interested in trying the BRRRR strategy on a property that would need more TLC.

If y'all have any recommendations/referrals to build out a great Cleveland team, we'd greatly appreciate it! Our current focus is to find investor-friendly agents and property managers.

Thanks in advance!

-Sandy & Carrie

**Apologies to those who already saw this message, as it was mistakenly posted in the wrong city's forum. -- newbie-error. ;-)

[Stephen Knapp]

@Ari Hadar

Ha. California winters are nice; but I enjoyed all the seasons in Cleveland, especially fall. My main reason for moving back to California was that I got married, had a baby and we wanted to be closer to family.

As an out-of-state investor, personally, I would want to target long-term tenants. Find areas with less turnover, less turn costs, etc. When I lived in Cleveland, I targeted an area that catered to university grad students and medical residents (Cleveland Heights). It was a great market, but the turnover was very high (40%-50%/year). Later, I also targeted a more long-term tenant market (Shaker Heights). Here you had long-term professional tenants, people downsizing from SFH and a smaller mix of medical residents. A somewhat similar market on the Westside would be Lakewood. Two transitioning markets that have received a lot of investor (and developer) interest are Ohio City and Gordon Square.

There’s a lot of nuance there. Before I invested, I would at a minimum, spend 3 days on-the-ground checking out different neighborhoods and find an area that fits your comfort zone. Best of luck!