Central Georgia Investing

[Noah Lefholz]

Hey guys, my wife and I are moving back to central Georgia this spring (May) and are taking quite a bit of equity with us from our house in Utah. I've been doing as much research as I can on good cities to invest in, standard CAP rates for the areas, average rent, etc. I'd like to hear yalls opinions on these subjects so I can go into the Georgia market not so blind! Thanks in advance.

[Curt Smith]

Hi Noah, Read the paper I wrote Bullet Proof rentals linked off the first paragraph of my profile.

Cap is not the top criteria that makes rentals work (tenants actually pay the rent and you don't have to evict).  Jobs and growing GOOD jobs are the best predictor.  GA is a hot bed of jobs in Atlanta surrounded by largely very poor rest of the state.  Study bestplaces.net, city-data.com etc re income, unemployment and jobs on indeed.com setting radius to 5 mi.

Macon is very weak, the city gov is cutting core services.  Byron not much better, Warner Robins looks strong but has high turn over, low rents and a lot of houses sitting on the market due to military forced re-assignments leaving behind vacant houses with recent mortgages and are at value or under water.

Albany is poor and no good jobs source.  Use indeed.com radius 5mi to compare cities for jobs.  Columbus 200k MSA has had large employers pull out 1k etc jobs in the past 24 mo.  

Here's a test of an area being dead and you should either stay out OR learn a tactic that is related to making lemonaid with a weak area....   Test:  zillow.com rentals, set 3/2 house only rental.  If you see 3/2 houses renting for less then $800 the area is dead, if even one house <$700 its emploaded.  A nice house is affordable to dual blue collar incomes at $1000 to $1100.  Only invest in areas with good rents and zero low rents.

Regardless even a good town with jobs will have little appreciation because the move in/move out ratio is about balanced.  Its migration into an area combined with rising income that drives appreciation.   

Sad, few post on BP these types of economic critera for why real estate works.

What I did that was "make lemonaid" buy cheap but decent houses, this included double wides on their own land. Stay clear of mobile homes in parks (too long, but seearchable here). Fix nicely with new HVAC. Then rent to own with $1500 down (yoiu'll never get more down fromm poor folks) 12 months renting no late payments, you'll put them into a contract for deed (CFD) term 12 yrs +/-, blue collar needs short terms to see there being a possibility of ownership and to do the hard work to keep paying, 9% interest, keep payments same as prior rent; often $800 to $900/mo. I have a bunch at $825 and $875, at 9% interst for 12 years working backwward this makes for $65k to $70k selling price.

Another lemonaid tacitic that works in Macon/Milidgevill.  Buy a bunch of the 1940-50 2/1, 3/1, 3/1.5 for $10k-$20k, fix with new breaker box, roof, 12" ceramic tile floors every where (bullet proof).  Only elect heat.  no appliances rent for $400/mo "you bring it" rental model.  Tenants bring their own window ACs, all appliances.  High stickiness to moving.  BUT this is the model I refuse, its collect rent face to face with a gun in your pocket.  I only do tenants with bank accounts that can do ACH pay via erentpayments.com / cozy.co ...

Think outside the box in mid-GA, only buy quality houses in growing MSAs with available jobs.  Centerville/Warner Robins is weak but best of the bad choices I know of.  Only rental model for Macon is the $400/cash model.  Or slightly better houses walking distance to hospitals (any city) and market to traveling medical staff.  

Study current rentals >$1k and call those listings to learn from the owners. Best of luck.   

Search on meetup.org for local REI groups. You need boots on the ground help.

I forgot to mention:   the growing world trade (at a low right now FWIW) at Savanah, Augusta.  Augusta is seeing rental rates rise and raw houses price rise due to investors buying there.  IE a rising market.