Newbie: Am I doing out of state market research for my first market right?

[Sam Rexford]

Hey BP! This is my first post. I'm totally new to REI. I live in WA State and the numbers in my home market don't look great for me, so I'm looking out of state at SFH's and trying to nail down a city/market to get started in. I'm building a spreadsheet to slice and dice. Below are some of the data points I'm looking at in each city, what would you add/subtract, or roast me for? :)

1. Number of Zillow Total Active Listings (SFHs

2. Number of Zillow listings in my price range, and the percentage of homes in my range against Total Active's (to try and understand if there are enough in my price range).

3. Population Size

4. Population Growth/Decline (If the population is growing or declining over the last 5 years).

5. Population Size

6. Job Growth (Growing vs Declining) Percentage (To try and understand if the local job market will continue to grow or decline).

7. Number of Major Employers (To try and understand if the local economy is resistant to losing a big employer, or if that would crush the economy)

8. Redfin YoY Home prices appreciation by percentage

9. Rent prices increases by percentage (is rental prices increasing or declining to indicate rental market strength)

10. Wage increases by percentage (are job wages increasing or declining to indicate job market strength)

11. Is the State Landlord Friendly (Yes or No)

12. Are there enough Property Managers with enough properties under management and deep enough vendors bench, or is it small shops

13. Floodzone risk (Severe, High, Moderate, Minor)

Am I on the right track? Roast my data or give me some advice :)

 

[Samuel Diouf]

Columbus, Ohio is a great market to consider if you're looking for appreciation markets that still cash flow. I moved here from Florida after seeing the expansive growth in the Columbus market.

There are multiple billion dollar companies dumping money into the city, such as Intel, Google, Honda, and Amazon. This is causing a huge influx of people moving here for jobs. And a lot of start-up companies are migrating to this city as well because of the OSU campus that has thousands of talented students graduating and looking for positions locally.

Everything that’s going on here in Columbus is attracting investors and other businesses from all over. A recent study showed that 80 people are moving to this city every single week, which will continue to increase housing demand.