Panama City, Florida rental strategy

[Jacob Warner]

Good Afternoon,

I am currently stationed in Virginia but i will be moving to Panama City/Destin, Florida in the next 4 months. My wife and I purchased our home in VA, but we do not have any experience with rental investments. Our goal long term is to buy and hold SFH rental properties in middle class neighborhoods, but would be open to other strategies that are working well in that area as well.

We are looking at buying a multi family home or a live in flip for our first house when we move to that location. Would love collaborate with people in that area that understand the markets, and people who have experience leveraging military benefits with investments properties. 

Thanks in advance!
 

[Matt Leber]

@Jacob Warner my advice would be to look for a 0.9-1% rule or better SFH in your new area in a neighborhood you like and can see yourself happy staying in long term (even if you know you probably will upgrade at some point). That way you can move in for a year, learn the area, and keep it as a cash flowing rental whenever you finally move out. Try not to allow emotions to guide your purchase. Just buy some simple SFH that the numbers will work on.

This is what my wife and I did in Orlando. We bought a home that is the smallest in a good neighborhood. We know it’ll probably be too small to our one-day family, but we’re happy to stay for now and the cost of living is low. This low cost of living has allowed us to save and pick up 7 rentals since late 2016. Our home will eventually become part of that rental portfolio because the numbers will work great. But if we fall on harder times and decide to make our home work for a longer period of time (maybe forever), we would still be happy where we are. Will just need to get some bunk beds for the kids haha!