@Anastasia Jordan I am not sure I agree with your last 2 posts... the closest I could find to a true statement was "most investors look to put their homes on Sec. 8" and even that is limited to a small demographic.
-Birmingham is a city that is quickly coming back, not going down. I don't have time to go over what has many times been posted about our amazing city but do some research on how much money is being pumped into the downtown and midtown areas alone.
-The cost of turnkey investments across the city are quickly rising, as are retail homes in most suburbs.
-You definitely need to spend money on cosmetics, renters are more picky today about where they live then I have seen in my 17 years of experience. Most investors that are purchasing in our city are either buying a turnkey product or doing their own turnkey - either way, the result is a huge amount of turnkey inventory for tenants to choose from. If one house falls short of a prospects needs/wants, they will simply go to the house around the corner that has everything they want.
@Roy Oliphant Birmingham is a cash-flow city, there is not as much appreciation here as you see in DFW. One way that we are able to support the numbers that you are seeing is the strong number of renters that occupy our city. Birmingham comes in way above the national average when you look at renters vs. home owners.
