Northeast Florida (Jacksonville and St Augustine)

[Patrick Parry]

West Coast to East Coast BPS,

I have been considering jumping coasts for some time now.  I have probably about 20 Aunts and Uncles over in the Jacksonville area and countless amounts of cousins so my sphere would be quite large off the bat.  

I am a Realtor here and my dad is a general contractor of 30 years, but my ultimate end goal is to become a full time investor.  Starting with fix n flips and buy and hold SFRs and ultimately moving into Apartments.  Curious to how the market is for investment point.  How are Cap Rates?  Are there still a large amount of distressed homes?  What are inventory levels like?  How is demand?  Are there large margins on flips?

Coming from the OC getting into any of the above mentioned arenas requires a large amount of cash or finding a screaming deal.  

You can call me lazy, but figured might as well talk to the boots on the ground instead of spending countless hours researching Google, Zillow and etc.(or talking to a family member that just reads the papers)  Which I have already spent a decent amount doing.  

I found this article interesting about South FL.  60% of purchases cash.  That exact thing happened in SoCal bringing a 30% year over year appreciation from Sept 2012 to Sept 2013

http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/business/real-...

Any words of wisdom are greatly appreciated.