All Forum Posts by: Art Perkitny

@Jalissa Hayes the Census is a great source of information to real estate investors. 

I would look at data such as population, income, employment, poverty, educational attainment, etc... 

This will paint a rather good picture of the markets you are interested in. 

@Remington Lyman

Is this what you are looking for?

@Kevin Suttles

I second what everyone else is saying. Assembling a great team is always key. 

Having said that, selecting the location is also of great importance. 

To select a great market I would do the following: 

 I would start by defining my investing goals. That is, what is my appetite for cash flow vs appreciation. Also, how risk averse/affine am I. These parameters will help decide what kind of yields you are searching for, which you can use to filter down your list of macro markets.

Then I would start by looking at the macro market's fundamentals, that is the population, job and income growth over time.

After that, I would look to see what the rents and home prices are and how those are trending as well.

I would do a similar analysis, but at the sub-market level for the metro area you are considering investing in.

Other metrics that I find valuable to understand are household income, poverty, unemployment, and educational attainment. Also, the trend for the aforementioned metrics is also very important.

Lastly, you could study permit data to get a better idea of how the relationship between supply and demand is trending in your target market.

Hope this helps!

@Joe DeClue, @Lindsey Z.

Glad you guys like the map! 

They are actually a part of a project that I am working on

If you're interested, my signature contains a link to the site

@Ric Ernst the metrics used include the following:

- Median Home Value

- Median Rent

- Percent of Population with College Degree

- Percent of Population on Food Stamps

- Poverty Rate

- Vacancy Rate

- Rent to Income Ratio

- Median Household Income

Which area do you no agree with exactly?

The rankings are accurate about 95% of the time and identifying locations with incorrect scores helps us fine tune the algorithm to perform better

@Sara Perkinson how well and for how much a 2 bed room SFR will rent is going to be largely influenced by the exact location within Cleveland.

To help you with your search I have included two maps.

The first one show the vacancy rate at the tract level. Higher vacancies mean you will have a harder time filling the home with a tenant. 

The 2nd map shows the median rents for the same areas. 

The data comes directly from the Census bureau.  

Hope this helps! 

Hey @Zulf H. I can help with suggesting areas to avoid/investigate. 

If you are looking for higher quality tenant profile i would suggest sticking to B or higher areas. 

Returns will be lower, but so will the hassle factor.

The map below shows the rankings for area within Indy on an A to F scale. The lower the score, the higher the risk and lower quality the tenants will be. 

@Geren Williams

@Geren Williams, seems like a location with steady growth and little volatility. Here are some interesting metrics derived from Census data for Cumberland County which contains Fayetteville.  

Population in Cumberland County has be increasing steadily since 2007

Rent has increased marginally, enough to combat inflation. About a 1.9% CaGR. 

@Jerry Akop what kind of investments are you looking for? Cash flow, appreciation, hybrid?  How much risk are you willing to take on as well? How far from home are you comfortable investing in? 

These are the questions I would be answering first. Once I have a better idea of what my goals are, I would begin searching for a location that fits the criteria. 

For example, if you are looking for cash flow and are comfortable with moderate risk and fine with a long distance investment, then I would look at places like Cleveland, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, etc... 

@Naveen Kumar, you will have a hard time finding even a C class property that is showing a 1% rent to price ratio. You'd have to be looking at D/F to consistently find returns in excess of 1%. My advice would be to find B/C areas with growth potential and hold that asset. Once some time passes, with modest rent increases every year, you should see good cash flow and won't have to deal with the risks D/F area bring.