Hello everybody! First post and question.

[Chris Burcher]

Hey guys, happy to be part of the BP community and thanks for reading.

My wife and I are newbie investors with 5 doors in our local market, 4 are under contract so we have little experience with how hard it will be to find renters. The one SFW has been easy over the past 5 years, but I understand that in small markets with low populations and growth, industries, jobs, etc. it will be harder to find renters. Just looking to hear your thoughts about this assumption. I ask because, in the COVID market, it is difficult to find deals (low price, high potential return) in our chosen, larger, distant market, but there are some cash flowing deals locally. Our goals are cash flow, forced appreciation/BRRRR, and tax sheltering my wife's income. I am REPS and manage our local properties.

So, anyone successful at investing in their tiny local markets? Support for/against the local, stagnant vs. larger, growing target markets? 

Thanks!

Chris

[Nathan Gesner]

I don't know exactly what you mean by "small" market. Is that a town of 50,000 or 500? 

I'm in a town of 9,500. We are heavily reliant on tourists in the summer and petroleum. The oil/coal/gas industry has been hit hard so we lost a lot of businesses and employees. Tourist season was slower than usual, thanks to the COVID scare. Despite that, I purchased a single-family home in June for $60k below market and rented it immediately. 

I also manage 400 rentals in the area and have the lowest vacancy rate I've seen in 10+ years. This is true of houses and apartments. We're also seeing the strongest sales market ever.

I'm cautious about what I invest in, but that's how I was investing in 2015, as well. There's money to be made in every market. You just have to figure out what constitutes a good deal and buy with one eye on the next downturn.