Knowing Your Markets

[Viresh Patel]

Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well! 

I wanted to share something with you all about knowing your market ins and out. I recently purchased a duplex in Longview Texas. It is not as big as Dallas, Houston, Austin, or San Antonio. The population in Longview, Texas is about 85,000 people. I was originally going to house hack my duplex with two people in each duplex as the rooms were located on opposite end of the duplex. So in all four tenants total. Soon did I realize that house hacking did not work in smaller cities like this. House hacking is really good for the big cities because you have more people and looking for a place to stay and limited amount of housing in the bigger cities. I already had a plan B just in case the house hacking didn't work. My goal was to rent each room out for $700 each so a total of $1,400 for each duplex. Instead I ended up renting out to a single family for $1,300 a $100 less then I was planning on making. All in all the reason why I'm posting this is to share with you all to make sure you understand your markets to see if you can do what your trying to do there and also make sure you always have a plan B just in case your plan A doesn't work out.