Southern Charm Towns For Rental Properties

[Mitchell Thompson]

Looking to find rental properties in the 30k-100k (population) cities in the south to buy next round of investment properties. Is there any cities that are smaller in the south that has houses for sale less than $80k and has descent returns? Georgia, S. Carolina, N. Carolina, Tenn, or Northern Florida? Along with property management companies that are reputable.

Thank you in advance.

[Curt Smith]

Buy rentals in the path of progress!   If you don't deeply understand the job market, new employers you may buying in weak towns where tenats lose jobs and then you have to evict, rinse and repeat.  I've proven this for myself in a few medium sized towns in GA.  GA is a jobs magnent metropolis of Atlanta surrounded by an entire state of weak and poor towns.  Macon, Columbus, Miledgeville, on and on.   A few bright areas; up near Chattanooga, Athens a college town, Savanaha a shipping town, Augusta now getting some Gov and shipping jobs.

Read the how to set your rental business up paper I wrote to help folks file linked off my profile 1st paragraph to help you set criteria for choosing your 2ndary markets to buy in.  

Indeed.com with mile radius set to 5 mi will help with a rough jobs number that you use to compare to similar sized towns for what town has more job openings.

Also another indicator of dead, weak, ok, great, indicators is the rent amount you see in the market (zillow.com rentals) for a 3/2 house.   Weak is a 3/2 renting under $800/mo, ok is $900-1100, Great is all rental listings are >=$1200/mo.   The math behind this is based on qualifying of 3x income.  Do you know how little income qualifies for a $800/mo rental?   If thats all they can afford theres zero jobs in that area vis versa when no rentals are under $1200, means good income from good jobs.