New investor seeking advice in Milwaukee Market

[Jim Wollmer]

Hi All, I am interested in Buy and hold for cashflow, am trying to educate myself in the market before I jump in. I have read on BP that in Milwaukee, the D class housing has best cashflow, but not sure I am comfortable with sending crews into those neighborhoods. Are those of you investing there using full service property management where they are conditioned to handle the issues that will most likely arise in those areas? And are you using the Property Manager to coordinate any rehab necessary with their contractors?

I like the idea of purchasing multiple low cost rentals to level vacancy instead of one higher priced property with potentially lower net return and more impact of vacancy.

Thanks for the help, BP has been a great resource for me. I drive an hour to work each day and am eating through the podcasts.

[Joel Florek]

@Jim Wollmer I am personally not comfortable buying the "cheep" single family homes in a bad area. The only way I would go buy single family homes is in a college town or in a market where there is a unique opportunity to get appreciation off of holding or adding improvements to the property which usually you only get from the B class properties. 

I personally like multi families. I would suggest looking up in the fox valley area in Appleton or up to Green Bay. It is a growing area and much nicer communities then the D class it sounds like your considering in Milwaukee. Remember, if you ever decide you want to get out of the game would people be jumping at a D class neighborhood to buy your property?

Also, listen to the latest podcast. There was an interesting start to a discussion on the type of properties your thinking of buying.