Newbie looking for advice... I know "typical newbie"

[Casey Nordendale]

Hello everyone. My wife Julie and I are newbies and are interested in residential real estate investment in Asheville, NC. We plan to move to Asheville in Q1 2017 but are worried about whether or not it will prove to be a difficult city to find properties that cash-flow. In an ideal world, five years from now we would own five, or more, residential investment properties in Asheville. For those unfamiliar with Asheville, it is a wonderful and beautiful place. Not coincidentally the real estate market there is hot, hot, hot… but seemingly not all that big. We are newbies and have not purchased real estate other than a condo we lived in in Chicago, and our home in St. Paul, MN, where we live now, so this freaks us out a bit.

We had planned to move to Asheville prior to being bitten by the real estate investment bug. Since being bitten, we have been doing our due diligence educating ourselves. We each have a stack of books that we are reading. So far I am have read: The Wall Street Journal. Complete Real-Estate Investing Guidebook, by David Crook, Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki, Real Estate Investing for Dummies, By Eric Tyson, Buy it Rent it Profit, by Bryan M. Chavis, and I am at the end of The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Real Estate Investing, by Bigger Pockets. I have a lot more books on the book shelf ready to go and additionally we have been listening to Bigger Pockets Podcasts, watching Bigger Pockets Webinars, and going to REIA meetings. During our crash course we have learned a ton but two big themes seem to have immerged: 1) Buy properties near your home (especially if you are a newbie) and 2) Do your math correctly and only buy properties that meet the 70% rule.

I know nobody knows the future, and nobody can really offer more than an opinion but among the more experienced of you out there, will Asheville be a hard place to accomplish our goals? Is it too competitive there? We have great credit but will it be harder to get financing in such a hot market? Will we need to put more down when we buy properties? In short, would it be smarter to buy less expensive properties in a more affordable location? Would we be smarter to buy in nearby Charlotte? Or is two hours away too far for the newbie?