All Forum Posts by: Ahmad N.

Hi everyone. So I'm looking to buy my first rental property and need some opinions on where to get it in the US. I'm looking to get a 2 bedroom unit, and I'd like to get one which is under 275k roughly. To determine potential cities across the US which could work for me, I used the following main criteria, some of which is pretty lenient:

Median 2 bedroom price < $275K
Median gross rent > $1000
Population growth > -7%
Population in poverty < 18%
2020 Crime Index < 450
Renter population > 30%
Rural population < 30%
Population working in this city > 25%
Days on market < 85 days

I looked at roughly 170 cities across the US where 2 bedroom houses under 275k existed in relatively large numbers. After applying the above filters, the only cities that remained were the following:

1. Dallas, TX and it's surrounding cities,

2. San Antonio, TX,

3. Some suburb cities around Atlanta, GA,

4. Some other lone cities like Florissant, MO, Lexington, SC, and Augusta, GA.

Does this make sense. Are there no other popular cities across the US which meet the above criteria ?

Most of my data is sourced from City-Data.com.

Here's a illustrative version of the example I mentioned in my post above. The map below shows the city boundaries in the DFW metroplex area. It's easy to see that if I start researching every town here individually, it can take quite a bit of time :)

And I don't mind researching these individual cities or even zip codes, but initially I want stats of the region as a whole, based on which I can decide if I should drill down further or look at another real estate market.

Hi everyone. Thankyou for all your suggestions which I really appreciate. I've made a note of all the factors mentioned here, and I intend on researching on all of them one by one.

One question I have is, what's the best way to get data, based on which I can determine which real estate markets in the US suit my goals, which looks at a region rather than individual 'cities' ? I know of city-data.com which has been recommended in some BiggerPockets youtube videos, however the problem with city-data.com is that it gives data for a specific 'city'. What if I want data for a specific region, which can contain multiple 'cities' ?

For example, suppose I'm looking for stats for Dallas, TX area. Now if I type 'Dallas, TX' in city-data.com, it'll give data for Dallas 'city', which will exclude nearby popular cities like Plano, Frisco, Allen, McKinney, etc.

So is there a better way to get data where the region can contain a bigger area, rather than looking at data for individual 'cities' ? Ideally, I'd want to be able to draw a custom region boundary on a map (like on Zillow) and get stats for that region, which can contain multiple cities.

Hi Matthew, and thankyou for your suggestions! I have a few questions:

1) Are you saying that it'd be better to search for properties near universities, hospitals or big company offices ? Also I understand the reasoning in being near universities (since students would normally rent), but why hospitals and company offices ?

2) How do I judge which neighborhoods in a target city are considered 'good' by the locals there, especially if I've never lived in that city ?

3) Lastly, do you know of any online calculators which can help with determining what exactly would be my net rental income after all deductions from the rent ?

Hi everyone, this is my first post here :) .. Recently I've developed an interest in rental property investment and am trying to figure out what resources/factors to consider when determining where in the US to get it. Since the purpose would be to put it up for rent, the obvious goal is to target a city where rent/price ratio is high (or price/rent ratio is low). But there are other factors, such as choosing a city where rental laws are favorable for tenants, there's a decent amount of population (to make sure there would be renters), the economy is good and chances of rent and property value appreciation over the coming years is high.

My question is what other factors should I consider ? And what's the best way to determine what such cities are that I should be short listing ?

My budget isn't that high (maybe about 250k), and I'd prefer to simply buy the property via cash instead of having a mortgage, so I'd be more interested in cities where median house prices are below 250k.

I'm looking at Dallas, TX and it's surrounding area, but I'm also wondering what other cities in the US I should consider. I'm myself based in Seattle, WA, but sadly the market here is way too $$$ for me :)