Investment in a Quad in Rural Iowa?

[Sara Reeder]

I am in the process of analyzing a fully occupied quadplex in a rural community in Iowa. The numbers look good, but I'm concerned about vacancy time and service providers for such a small town...Anyone here investing in rural areas?  We are fairly familiar with the area since my husband grew up in the next town over and we both grew up in rural areas of Iowa, but I'm trying to set some expectations since I've been a Property Manager in Denver for 7+ years (so a sliiiightly different market). Ag is the main industry. Tiny town (300+ pop). It's about 20-25 minutes to 3 larger (still smallish) towns and about an hour to Des Moines. This would primarily be a Cash Flow play as I wouldn't expect a lot of appreciation there.  From the listing, it's fully occupied, but 3/4 are on month to month leases. Could that cause issues with financing? 

What am I not thinking of?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Sara

[Alecia Loveless]

@Sara Reeder Two things that come to my mind is how many other rentals are in town that would be competition for this property? Also are there any realtors or other people in the industry you could talk to to see how much call there is in the immediate area for rentals.

A couple more things. Does the town put out any demographics or statistics on the amount of people who own homes, rent homes, graduate high school.

Is there Any industry besides AG that you could advertise your rentals in? Grocery store, library, hardware store, diner/restaurant. Are there churches you could connect with the ministers or priests in to let them know you have rentals. Do high school kids typically go to college, move away, continue living with parents on the farm? Just a few ideas for attracting tenants that I use besides my local Facebook groups. In my small New England area a lot of the local billboards in stores and restaurants still provide great results.