New Member from the San Francisco Bay Area

[Kevin Yoder]

My wife and I are looking at investing in rental properties.   We live in Pleasanton, CA and are trying to determine if we can generate any cash flow from properties in Northern California or whether we need to look into other states.   We are open to any inputs people have who may live in our area.

[Stewart Guthrie]

Welcome to BP @Kevin Yoder,

We are a PM in the Sacramento region.  We work with a lot of Bay Area investors; as you know, the acquisition costs of property anywhere in your neighborhood tend toward the obscene. Prices in the valley are a lot easier to take.

Our Bay area clients that invest in Sac tell us it's close enough to the Bay so they can be more involved during the acquisition phase, which is comforting when you're first starting out.  The more experienced they get, the more comfortable they are in acquiring assets across the country; many of them have sold their local, Sacramento assets during the recent market upturn, (alas...), and acquired property in distant markets.  

I don't get involved in the sales side, (I can refer you to a few, really good, investor oriented agents if it would help), but we work with investors and agents to get good rental analysis and neighborhood insights on prospect properties.  I'm happy to share insights on our market if you're interested.

Happy New Year!