Understanding your market.

[Adam Benenati]

Hey guys looking for advice on how to study and find out the market that you live in. I live in St. Louis MO. I'm looking into rentals and flipping however I have a lot more research and planning to get done first. Any suggestions on how to better understand your market?

[Max Householder]

Set up alerts on Realtor or Zillow and run the numbers through the BP calculator or your own spreadsheet on every property that comes up in the market you're interested in. Then 'Favorite' or 'Like' them and watch to see which ones sell fast and which ones sit on the market for a long time. Do this for a few months while you read and listen to podcasts and you'll learn a lot about your market. Are the prices going up overall? Which properties seem overpriced yet sell quickly vs. which appear overpriced and don't sell. Why do the numbers appear to work great on this one, but it's been on the market for 3 months? Is there a glut of inventory or does nobody want it for some reason? Why did that one go Pending in 24 hours?

Try to create your own hypotheses and then bounce your ideas off investors in your area. You'll learn a lot and it's easier for someone to answer a question like, "I'm interested in flipping a house, what are some reasons that houses priced around $---,--- in zip code 00000 are selling in less than a week while similar houses priced about the same in adjacent zip code 00001 are sitting on the market for months at a time?" rather than asking Hey, I'm new! Tell me about my market!