All Forum Posts by: Jon Passow

 Thanks, Diane! Good luck on your trips!

 Thanks for the reply, Hank! You are the second person to bring up the taxes being an issue for Ohio. Very interesting....

 Hi Kerry. Investing in both is very much a real possibility for myself. The only thing I'm a little timid on is the time involved in learning the good/bad neighborhoods and building the team in two markets. I feel like, starting out, I should focus my 100% attention to one city.

Hi Tom and Mark. I think this would be a great discussion to be had about Cleveland (having lived there myself for 20 plus years and recently just visited). The reason I feel that Cleveland is not a good market is that the population has been declining for quite some time, there are a disproportionate amount of houses compared to the population, no large industry, weather that may cause maintenance issues down the line, and then there's the Cleveland Browns (sorry, could resist a loving jab at our sports team).

The positives, while I view them as not enough to outweigh the negatives, are homes are cheap (but so is rent), at least it's not Detroit, and the homes are readily available for purchase and rehabbing. This could also be viewed as a negative as well. When I was there escaping the fires of California 3 months ago, every block I drove down had 1-6 homes for sale. To me, as an investor, that's worrisome. What are your thoughts?

 Hi Larry and thanks for the tip!

 Looking for cash flow for the most part I would say.

I hope this is the right forum to post this in (admins feel free to move it if it's not). I'm gearing up to use the BRRRR strategy (out of state investing) and start my real estate empire (insert maniacal laugh here) by buying in class C to C+ neighborhoods. I was hoping to get everyone's opinions about the two possible areas that I am looking into for properties, Indianapolis, Indiana and Columbus, Ohio.

Both cities have lots of industry, schools, and a growing population, similar median rent (around $825-$869 for 2015), vacancy rates are 5.6% for Indianapolis in 2017 (which was a drop from 2015 by almost 2%), and 4.88% for Columbus in 2015. 

I'm originally from Cleveland so Ohio holds a soft spot in my heart but I also know of a very large turnkey operation that I respect that loves Indianapolis and has had a lot of success there.

For all intensive purposes, they both look like great options and it might actually be a good idea to invest in both to diversify my portfolio. What's everyone's thoughts on all this?

 Thank you so much for the extra in depth info, Doug!! I'll be sure to have all that information in case I'm ever asked. Always good to be prepared so I look even more professional when the time comes :)

Hi Doug, that does help. I'm looking, at the start, to purchase multi-family homes (through my LLC), but by year 4 I'll be purchasing large apartment complexes. My wife owns her own massage business so W-2's would be out but she can provided tax returns.

Perfect! Thanks for the replies guys!!!!