Need help in deciding city

[Rohit Vij]

Hello All,

I am new to investing. I have a condo, where I used to live and which is underwater now, converted to a rental when I moved to SFR. It barely covers P&I, HOA, taxes etc. but provides me experience dealing with rentals :)

Now I want to invest in a rental property which 'actually' has some positive cash flow. I was looking at Houston market, but seems there are many rental properties sitting vacant for couple of months. May be oil price drop is impacting the market.

I need help in deciding which market you guys think is good to invest. I would like to buy and hold and looking in 100-150k range. I live in San Diego, CA, there is nothing in my backyard with good rent to price ratio :(

[Mike D'Arrigo]

@Rohit Vij Although CA is not a good cash flow market it does have great upside appreciation potential. The Midwest is great for cash flow. I particularly like Indianapolis and Kansas City, Choosing a market isn't as hard as it might seem. Just be careful not get bogged down with analysis paralysis. The 3 most important demographic and economic factors to look at are 1. Population growth 2. Job growth and 3. Income. The you want to look at property taxes and insurance. Taxes are generally your single largest line item expense which is why I don't like TX. They have some of the highest property taxes and insurance rates in the nation which kills cash flow. You might want to listen to some of the podcasts on my website. There are several episodes where I talk about choosing a market.