Newbie Cali investor learning about Seattle market

[Yohannes Kifle]

Hey Seattle investors or real estate professionals. I am a newbie investor living in California and I'm taking my first steps to getting into the Seattle market. I decided that 2016 is the year I purchase my first rental. I have family in Seattle that will be helping me manage my rentals from a distance so I already have some boots on the ground which I've heard over and over again is very important.

I've been doing my research on a few neighborhoods and I was hoping to get some feedback about what I have found. I'll also be visiting the area soon to get a better feel for the market there.

I've done some preliminary research on Shoreline, Edmonds, Lynnwood, Everett, Renton, Burien and Seatac. So far I've compared them on their Price/Rent ratio, population size, population growth trends, monthly SFH sales trends, SFH inventory trends, unemployment rate trends, building permit trends and crime rates.

Right now I am liking the numbers I see in Renton and Everett. These are the largest cities of the group and they show the strongest numbers in all the metrics. They both have good population growth with Renton's population exploding in 2009. My guess as to why that happened is many people moved into the more affordable area of Renton when the market collapsed. Between Renton and Everett, Renton seems like it has more room for growth and according to my family living there the area south of Seattle is an up and coming area. Of course all this is just from looking at some data. I still need to visit these cities and drive around to see what they are like.

The one thing that worries me the most about Renton and Everett is that Boeing is by far the larges employer by an order of magnitude. But I figure the risk that Boeing collapses all of a sudden should be pretty small. I think if I keep an eye on the company I should be able to see trouble coming and exit that market if necessary.

I'm actually looking to invest in multifamily but so far I haven't found a good source of data for metrics on those. I'm hoping to learn more during my visit this weekend.

So for those more familiar with that area are there things I should look into or learn more about? Does my reasoning about Renton and Everett make any sense?

I'm going to be in the area from Jan 15th till Jan19th. It's short notice but if there are any investors that want to grab coffee to talk about their experience investing in the area I would be really interested and grateful to hear your stories.

Thanks!