New Investor in West Chicago Suburbs (Fox Valley)

[Larry Green]

Hello BP Community,

My name is Larry and I've been a lurker for a while, but ready to take the plunge into real estate investing. I'm looking for rental units in the Fox Valley area (currently have my eyes on a potential house hack to get out of our current apartment rental). Looking for any and all advice about the area!

I've lived here my whole life, but my one concern is the long term prospects of Illinois which has me considering looking out of state, but that is also a headache (currently reading Long Distance Real Estate Investing by David Greene to get over that fear if the chicagoland area turns out not to be viable for a newbie).

Anyways, hello again, and I'm very excited to get off the couch and into this exciting world.

[Dave G.]

Larry - congratulations on your decision to pursue real estate investing.

While I have been in AZ for nearly 30 years, I grew up in Naperville and go to Naperville/Chicago frequently to visit relatives as well as for business travel. 

My recommendation would be to definitely look out of state. My uncensored opinion is that IL (Chicago especially) is a cesspool of a state financially from decades of corrupt politicians. I personally will never own a real estate or earn 1 cent of income in IL.

So where to go? AZ has had a serious run of appreciation and I am having trouble finding deals with numbers that I think work. So I am currently looking at Indianapolis, and perhaps South Carolina (Myrtle Beach/Charleston). I have not pulled the trigger yet on a remote purchase, but I see it happening in the next six months. In the meantime, I've pinged BP members for property manager recommendations and am getting familiar with those markets and what the numbers look like. 

Good luck in your investing!