Rental homes in the Florida market?

[Gretchen Diercks]

What are the thoughts going on for the Florida market?  Is it a good place for investors to be going into, especially for rental homes? 

Florida's number of foreclosure homes is increasing which means there are plenty of distressed property for inventory, but does that make a great rental market?

[Eric Black]

Hi Gretchen,

Well, there is no "Florida Market". There are many markets in Florida and they can be very different. Miami and Orlando are fairly hot right now, other areas like the Space Coast, not as much. Some areas are having stronger job growth which makes it a good rental market but can make numbers harder to look good. Other areas you can get houses for very cheap but you won't have a big pool of renters as there's still not a lot of job growth. 

My advice would be to pick one or two markets and start researching them. If you rule one out, pick another market and keep researching until you find one you think looks good and then really learn that market well.

Cheers!

Eric