Help with market research

[Victoria Ho]

Hello - I'm a new investor from NY. I'm looking to invest out of state since it's expensive where I live. I have narrowed down to 4-5 markets below. Any investor in these markets can give me some advice or references? Any opinion on which market I should invest in? Thank you in advance.

1.Illinois - Moline or Chicago

2. Pensylvania - Reading Berks County or Philadelphia

3. NC - Charlotte

4. GA - Atlanta

[Crystal Smith]

Originally posted by @Victoria Ho:

Hello - I'm a new investor from NY. I'm looking to invest out of state since it's expensive where I live. I have narrowed down to 4-5 markets below. Any investor in these markets can give me some advice or references? Any opinion on which market I should invest in? Thank you in advance.

1.Illinois - Moline or Chicago

2. Pensylvania - Reading Berks County or Philadelphia

3. NC - Charlotte

4. GA - Atlanta

My opinion: Stick to the larger metropolitan areas versus the small towns. Why?

• The pool of properties & people purchasing or selling is larger. Which means when it comes time to sell your Days on the Market will be shorter
• While the cost to purchase may be higher the rents & Return on Investment are usually larger.
• Travel- Costs to get to a larger metropolitan area are usually less than what it costs to get to a small town. More direct flights.

With that said I would remove Moline & Reading Berks County from your list. Regarding the rest- When we explored investing out of state we were evaluating Chicago, Charlotte & Atlanta. There were other markets but I'm only dealing with what's on your list. The majority of our $ went into Chicago because it's a large & diverse market; we could make our hurdle rate (ROI) targets & the airports were key.

We liked Charlotte because of how fast it was growing and still growing. Our challenge though it wasn't large or diverse enough.  When I say diverse I mean market diversity. But I imagine we will pull the trigger in Charlotte because with growth comes diversity.

Atlanta- Every deal we looked at in Atlanta we could not make our numbers- Rents were too low.