Best Neighborhoods to Buy Rental Property/Wholesale In

[Alia Ali]

Hey everyone! I am hoping to house hack my first rental property in the Minneapolis / St Paul area and wanted assistance with the best neighborhoods for that.

In addition, I'd love to know which areas are the best for wholesaling real estate.

Thank you!

[Evan Kraljic]

Start with your goals and work your way backwards. If you're looking for strictly cash flow, North Mpls and East St. Paul are the way to go. The reason why you can get better cash flow there is because they are generally seen as a riskier investment, ie: higher crime rates, less resources so worse schools/amenities, less businesses, etc. If you're looking for appreciation I wouldn't consider these neighborhoods because 3-4% YOY growth will only do so much on a 200k property. Granted I wouldn't bank on appreciation, especially not on a first property and with the general economic uncertainty right now but I digress...

I have no knowledge on the wholesaling question but one piece of advice is that it's difficult to get good responses on general questions. Which I know is difficult when starting out, because it's like drinking from a firehose with all the information out there. But if you're clear on what you want with a property (single family vs. duplex, turnkey vs. fixer upper, A/B/C class neighborhood, proximity to ______?), that will help you in the long run. 

A more specific recommendation would be to get a pre-approval from a lender so you know what price of property you could qualify for. And speaking with a real estate agent who deals with investors because they will be able to answer these questions much better than I could. @Adam Tafel is a good one who is on these forums semi-regularly.