Is Atlanta too hot a market and saturated with cash buyers?

[Athan D.]

Hello, everyone. I've been following the forums, listening/watching the podcasts, and reading up when I can. This is my very first post and I am very new to real estate investment. I live in Atlanta, particularly in Buckhead, where I was very fortunate to buy a small condo from 1965 at an affordable price (everything else in Buckhead is monetarily out of reach). I've owned property before where I house-hacked and made good money off of that, so I now want to start acquiring rental properties within a 30-40 minute drive of where I live. So, what's the issue? In just one year and a half, I've seen prices skyrocket, new humongous and luxurious condominiums are being built everywhere and the few rental properties I find off the usual real estate apps seem to be either dumps or, when very attractive properties, they are bought out almost immediately by cash buyers. Should I then start looking further out of the perimeter? Maybe even completely out of Atlanta? Is there any chance for little amateur without large amounts of cash guys like me? Thank you so much, and I'm sorry I made it a rather long post.