Investing Salt Lake City

[Kully Millage]

Hey guys, few years into investing and wanting to move to bigger faster market.  I'm looking for any helpful info from current Salt Lake Investors about the market.  

1) Are investors buying a lot of rental houses in Salt Lake with median price at 365,000?

2) What areas of town are most popular for buying rentals?

3) Which areas of town are safe and unsafe to market to and look to buy property?

4) Are guys kicking butt in wholesaling in Salt Lake?

Any and all info is appreciated.  

[Jason Pehrson]

Hi Kully, I'll provide what info I can but someone more tapped into real estate is probably going to have better information for you.

1) I believe the boom happening in Utah is mostly related to people moving in state and purchasing homes.  I don't believe the market rent prices are high enough to cover the median household price.  You can't get 1% or 3,650 a month in rent for a 365k house.  More like .5 percent I believe.

2) Areas that are going to be stronger for rental I would believe are going to be lower pricing (although that's becoming rare all over).  Areas up near Ogden and Hill Air Force base always seem to have a fairly strong rental market, but I don't know where you should and shouldn't be.  Midvale, West Valley, South Salt Lake, anything close to Trax Lines (Mass Transit) are going to be better for renting.  Again, a realtor who specializes is going to have much better information then I am.  Lehi/Saratoga Springs is booming is well, but probably closer to 20% gains in the last year or two.

3) I'd recommend you look at areavibes.com or trulia.com/local for safety information.  Rose park, West Valley, Kearns, Magna in Salt Lake County are places I would avoid personally.

4) Can't speak to much about this however I know there's some local REIA meetups centered around wholesaling going on so they must be doing alright :)

Sorry for my limited knowledge but hopefully that gives you some insight.

Good Luck