Hometown investing while in the Air Force

[Adam Cade]

Good evening BP! My wife and I are looking to make our first leap into the real estate investing market. I am from Knoxville, TN and we plan on moving back once I retire from the military in 10 years. I went to school in Oak Ridge, and spent a lot of time in and around Knoxville. We're looking to start out with a multifamily unit and our strategy is long-term rental. My wife and I have been going pretty hard on Zillow, Realtor.com, and a few other sites trying to see what opportunity lies in the Knoxville area.

Currently we are looking in Sequoyah Hills, Fort Sanders, Fourth & Gill, Old North Knoxville, and North Knoxville. We are BP Pro members and have worked the rental property calculator extensively, and done research in to property taxes for specific areas. We're not seeing a whole lot of room for reasonable investment gains. We have not linked up with a realtor yet, and are focusing on drilling down several locations of interest first.

We are new to REI and may be making incorrect assumptions for some of the expense items. We have been figuring in 8-10% for property management. We would like to start purchasing property over the next 10 years while I'm in the military so that once I retire, we can be more hands on. We realize that being geographically displaced from a rental property necessitates a property management company. We understand that having a property manager lowers our ability to maximize cash flow, but we want to start in an area that we know we will end up in later down the road.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and inputs!

[Kyle Spearin]

Hi @Adam Cade, thank you for your service! I think that for what you're looking for, your best bet is to have great boots on the ground such as property manager and realtor connections. These people will know about deals off market, before they hit the MLS, Zillow, etc. In these types of situations, you will probably have a wider margin because you will be able to pay below market price as opposed to at market rate, drastically changing your numbers. Your network is your net worth. Good luck!