First Rental Advice: Help Please!

[Kristy Burton]

We are brand new to real estate investing (primarily focusing on rental properties), although we've been educating ourselves for a while now (located in upstate of South Carolina). As we're trying to get started, we've found that we can't find any deals that will really cash flow and it's frustrating...obviously this is not a great time to start these endeavors with an inflated market, but are we missing something here? Or are we out of luck right now and need to wait until prices level back out? Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Sam Abraham]

Yea this is a tough time because housing prices have inflated so much the past few years and now interest rates have been raised 4 times this year. I remember in a recent podcast David Green mentioned that we are in a appreciation economy not a cash flow economy. Meaning that most of the money to be made in real estate in these economic conditions is for the actual value of the house to go up versus from cash flow.

My advice would just be patient and keep looking at deals as they come on the market. I would also recommend talking to a good real estate agent. I found mine on BiggerPockets find an agent tab and he has been extremely helpful. Talk to them about your budget and goals and maybe they could help you look in the right areas. Because of the current conditions, finding a deal is going to be difficult but it definitely exists. Perhaps taking an off market approach could help you find better leads? These are just my two cents, good luck!