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Updated over 10 years ago,
New member from Los Angeles / Tempe
Hi all! Enjoying the forum and learning a lot as I'm just starting out.
Two friends and I formed an LLC to buy and rent single family homes near college campuses. We live in LA but the price-to-rent ratios suck pretty horribly here so we started a quest to find an area with decent price-to-rent ratio in the Western US. This was way harder than I thought in today's market - I was shooting for the 1% rule, and had trouble finding even that - I can't imagine finding one that fulfills the 2% rule.
Anyways, decided on Tempe, AZ, around ASU. My parents lived in Phoenix for a long time so I know a bit about the area, and real estate here hasn't fully recovered from the last housing bubble (though it has appreciated greatly in the last 2 years, unfortunately). Any advice from other REIs in the Tempe area would be greatly appreciated- we drove around a lot but couldn't get a great feel for where exactly was the most desirable area to invest.
My 2 friends and I took a flight out to Tempe a few weekends ago and looked at several dozen properties with an agent. Our #1 property was bought before we could place an offer, our #2 property was slightly overpriced and not willing to deal, and we ended up with our #3 property, a 3BR/2BA 1300 SF home about a mile from campus for $180k. Not a killer deal since it will probably rent for $1400-1450, but damn, I don't know how anyone does much better in college areas in Western USA. We are buying with 20% down.
Now it's getting to the nitty gritty, we have inspection on Monday and then a few days after that we are locked in. Hopefully there's nothing deal-killing on inspection, now we have to decide whether to use a property manager or not. I feel like in the internet age I could do as good a job marketing the rental as any PM company, so it comes down to just how many midnight phone calls and other hassles we will have to deal with if we do the PM ourselves. Any advice on that?
Well, I've rambled on enough. Any advice or comments appreciated. Thanks all-