Moving to Nashville, looking for housing/rental. Some questions?

[Jaden Cook]

Hi everyone! This is going to be a bit of a brain dump, I appreciate any help!...

 I'm moving to Nashville to begin residency at the Vanderbilt Medical center. My original plan was to simply rent, but my dad has proposed the idea of a joint venture. Me and my wife and 3 kids will be living in the home for a minimum of 4 years, after which point we would consider either selling or holding long term as a rental. The budget is currently at about $315,000 (this would be the top and wouldn't be able to do updates/repairs if we purchased at this price). We are planning a standard 20% down loan, but have also thought about using a physician loan, or fha 203k if we find something that we could force some equity through repairs/updates. I've been researching areas within about 25 minutes of Vanderbilt, and have landed on a few areas: 1. Bellevue 2. Donelson 3. Hermitage 4. Goodlettsville 5. Brentwood (or the area between Brentwood and Antioch). Does anyone have any advice on these areas? Or are there any other areas we should be considering in our price range and future goals? I've heard the crime is a little high in places like Madison, or areas north of Nashville, is this accurate?

This would be a first for me and my dad, as neither of us has purchased a rental before. Trying to learn how to analyze properties has lead me to the (maybe incorrect) conclusion that many homes on the market in these areas won't cash flow well if used as a rental. Any thoughts on this? Or things we should be considering? Also, it seems houses are selling extremely fast, often above the asking price. I've always thought this was a sign the market might be a bit overvalued. I know Nashville has been growing like crazy, and no one has a crystal ball, but any thoughts on the general state of the market in Nashville and potential action into the next few years?

Also, I'm still open to the idea of renting, so if anyone has any leads on a landlord who would like some residents with a great credit score, no pets, and never party, I'd love to hear! 

Thanks everyone!!

[Tony Clark]

@Jaden Cook welcome to Nashville! My wife is a nurse at Vanderbilt and loves it, best of luck with residency. 

I would agree that Bellevue is one of the hottest suburbs. My wife and I are currently moving to the nations and will be doing a short term rental house hack, as we've found that typically properties that are in the neighborhoods we would want to live in wouldn't cashflow well as rentals, but will as Airbnbs (with proper permitting/registering with the city). 

Something to keep in mind is that property taxes are different depending on how close to the city you are. Areas closer to the city have a much higher tax rate than the areas a little bit farther out. Traffic coming up i65 from Vanderbilt to get up north can bottleneck depending on what time of day it is, so my wife and I decided we wanted to stay south or west if we could. 

I'm happy to hop on a call to talk more about specific areas and to share how our search went, we'd map from wherever we were looking to Vanderbilt so I've got a decent idea of the drive time from different areas of town!