All Forum Posts by: Hansen Zuo

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Mableton.

Purchase price: $268,000
Cash invested: $71,774

Single-family (near turn-key) buy & hold rental
Financial projections:
Year 1:
NOI: $1111.75 (Monthly)
BTCF: $205.08 (Monthly)
CoC: 3.32%
Cap Rate: 4.66%
Year 5:
NOI: $1230.02 (Monthly)
BTCF: $323.35 (Monthly)
CoC: 5.24%
Cap Rate: 4.09%

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

As a first investment property in the U.S., we want to execute a simple buy n' hold strategy to get familiar with property investing in U.S., We chose Atlanta among a host of other cities based on quantiative factors such as population growth, past appreciation, and affordability (price-to-income ratio and sales-to-rent ratio), as well as qualitative factors such as whether the state is landlord-friendly, long-term economic outlook and climate

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

We found the property off MLS. We targeted Mableton because it is in Cobb County, a county that is economically prosperous and friendly to landlords. Mableton specifically has a convenient location (closer to the Midtown, Downtown, and the Battery than lots of other suburbs), it is also very ethnically diverse with no one ethnic group as the dominant group. Furthermore, it is somewhat lower priced than some of the neighboring cities.

How did you finance this deal?

Conventional financing with 25% down

How did you add value to the deal?

No plan to add value immediately.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Worked with Matt Nicklin (OneSource Real Estate LLC) as a realtor, Team Wagner @ BankSouth with financing, and Lionel Thomas (All Alerts Home Inspections) as the home inspector. They all did a bang-up job in helping me navigate my first property purchase in the U.S.

I'll second Matt here, Cobb and Gwinett counties are great places to start. I had the same goal as you and just bought an SFH in Mableton. It cash flows after accounting for things like vacancy, preventative maintenance, etc.

Some pros/cons of Mableton:

Pros:

(+) On the "path of growth", surrounded by other cities in the Cobb with higher median household income and property values

(+) very convenient location, it is under 25 min drive to all the "happening" places in ATL: Midtown, Downtown, Truist Park, and you don't need to take Interstate which can get jammed up pretty quicky during rush hour

(+) diverse demographics, my block is about 1/3 Caucasian, 1/3 AA, 1/3 Hispanic, this helps you attract a diverse profile of renters. You will notice some other neighborhoods in ATL are much more dominated by one ethnicity

(+) The impending cityhood will really attract more mixed-use development to the area, even without it there are some exciting developments happening in the area

Cons:

(-) Schools leave more to be desired

(-) Pockets of it can be sketchy, by Cobb county standards at least. Most of Mableton is safely in the "B" category though and part of it (the parts close to Vinings) can even be considered "A"

(-) Not really a con, but despite more bang for your buck in terms of the type of property you can get, rental yield is not necessarily higher compared to other Cobb cities, it's about on par

That's amazing for this purchase price. Congrats on the deal. What is the renter profile this area will attract?

@Angel Sustache @Austin Kay @Chad Rosser I am an SF-based investor but looking to expand into ATL, I would be in ATL from Sep 4 to 18, would love to meet you guys for coffee/lunch to talk about investment strategies!

 Thank you for the heads up, Patrick, I would say I have broad understanding of different neighbourhoods on a macro level, but more due diligence at the street/block level is needed, I also plan to travel to Atlanta in early-mid September to see for myself

Hello Atlanta BP Community!

We are an out-of-state investor couple looking to purchase a turnkey SFH, in the west side of Atlanta, we are primarily looking at Grove Park, but are also open to other west-side neighborhoods, English Avenue, Vine City, Ashview Heights, as well as neighborhoods along the SW stretch of the beltline - West Lake, West View, West End, Oakland City, Adair Park, Pittsburgh, We are not new to RE investing but it will be the first time we are doing it out of state and we realize property management is absolutely the key to the success of this investment. are there any property management companies that have experience with managing SFHs in these neighborhoods that the BP community here would like to recommend?

Thank you and look forward to meeting many of you in the coming months and years as we want to be in Atlanta for the long term!