All Forum Posts by: Jimmy Lieu

If you’re looking for the next big investment opportunity, Columbus should be on your radar. Ranked among the top 10 cities for real estate investors in 2024, Columbus offers a booming economy, strong rental demand, and affordable home prices—a rare trifecta for maximizing ROI.

Why Columbus?

• Steady Growth – Home to Ohio State University (the largest college in the U.S.) and major Fortune 500 companies like Cardinal Health, Nationwide Insurance, and L Brands, Columbus attracts a steady influx of students, professionals, and job seekers every year.
• Strong Rental Market – With a growing population and a high demand for housing, rental properties are in constant demand, making it a prime market for investors.
• Affordable Prices – Unlike other hot markets, Columbus still offers below-national-average home prices (around $275,000 median), giving investors a chance to buy in before prices climb even higher.

Hi everyone,

My husband and I will be downsizing from our primary home into a townhome that we own as an investment property currently. Since we will be selling our primary property which we have lived in for 15 years we will not be paying capital gains taxes on it. We are so lost as to what to do with the money. One important thing is that we want to retire in the next 5 years. We own 3 other rental properties that have a 6.5%-7.5% APR, and no credit card debt or any other high interest debt to pay off. Our options are to put the money the stock market, buy a multi-unit property, by an established business, payoff the 3 rentals for cash flow, or get into hard money lending. So many options that we are at a loss. I would love a calculator that could help me make better decisions but not sure that exists. Help!

Hi there - I am starting out in real estate investing and am trying to build a portfolio of rentals that can produce enough cash flow for me to eventually leave my job and make real estate my main job. I have been going back and forth between an appreciation focused investment versus a cash flow focused investment. I'm unsure which focus would help me scale my portfolio and achieve my goals more efficiently. 

In the long run, I want to have properties that are producing strong cash flow (eventually would love to own small apartment buildings and syndicate larger deals), but it seems that focusing on cash flow and reinvesting those cash flows will be a slower process than focusing on properties prime for appreciation or with opportunities for forced appreciation. It seems I could scale my portfolio faster with an appreciation focus.

Does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations on this? I live in SoCal so if I wanted strong cash flow I would likely have to look out of state. I am definitely open to out of state investing though if that helps me reach my goal more efficiently, but would love to stay on the west coast. Thanks in advance for any input!

Quote from @Joshua Janus:

Quote from @Sam Rosenstein:

I've started to put together a map with some rough outlines for grades of different areas within the Columbus, OH area. I'm working on completely everything within the 270 outerbelt.

Columbus is an interesting place in that many C neighborhoods have brand new builds on lots next door to vacant lots/abandoned properties. A lot of this was caused due to the creation of Opportunity Zones as well as tax abatements that are provided by the city. Some examples of this are Bronzeville, Franklinton, Southern Orchards. 

Based on this, I agree that there are some C areas that have SFH selling for over $500k. All this to say that the grading is rough and there are definitely streets in each neighborhood that could be classified differently.

In any case, here's a screenshot of the work so far:

Here's the link to the publicly available map - https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1MTIUWGjpk0EchqZeJMc...

Please feel free to comment if you disagree with the way that I've classified any of the locations.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions!

 Here is one that I made with help from multiple agents and property managers in the Columbus area who have years of experience owning and managing real estate in the city:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1HJMUduL8bMq1HuLp8Ry8...

Example 1: How is an pocket like Westgate in Hilltop D class? There are 300k+ single family sales, 250k+ multi family sales, a large proportion of owner occupants, many new developments etc. Your map seems to down grade many areas in the city that I would never place in the D category.

Example 2: You have Clinton Estates as a D class area. Please go through the street views of these streets or drive down. This is a B class neighborhood in every way. It's self explanatory. 

The map above has areas in Cleveland, Ohio graded as F or D and those are a whole different story compared to Columbus areas like North Linden, Clinton Estates (no where near D class), Mt Vernon etc. 

 Hi Joshua, 

I'm an out of state investor and I believe I was using your map to help me locate properties within Columbus using your google maps link, but it no longer works. Any chance you have an updated one that you would be willing to share?

Thanks in advance

@Jaycee Greene thanks for the response! I am looking to start small - $100,000 - $200,000 is the price range. I haven't fully decided on a market but I have looked into Detroit, Columbus and Kansas City. But am open to suggestions. 

Certainly! Here’s a more polished version of your message:

Hello BiggerPockets community,

A close friend has been encouraging me to get into real estate investing for years. My wife and I recently met with them to seek advice and guidance, which ultimately led us to BiggerPockets. Since then, we have been dedicating our time to learning as much as possible—reading extensively, analyzing potential deals, and listening to BiggerPockets podcasts.

After careful consideration, we decided to sell our current home and rent instead, allowing us greater flexibility as we begin our real estate investment journey. The sale of our home will provide us with approximately $150,000 to allocate toward investments.

At this stage, we feel most comfortable focusing on long-term rentals. However, due to high property costs in our local market, we have been exploring opportunities in more affordable states, including Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio. Since we will be investing remotely, we plan to work with a property management company to oversee day-to-day operations.

Does this sound like a solid strategy for a first investment property? We would appreciate any insights or advice from those with experience in long-distance investing.

Thank you!

For the past 6 months I’ve been looking for houses (both SF and MF) that can produce at least a little bit of cashflow with around 20% - 30% down.

However, I’ve started to realize that this is pretty much impossible these days.

I currently have $110k sitting in my bank ready to be invested but I just can't find anything that will at least produce a 3% COC return. I've been looking for properties in and around Tampa, Orlando, and St Pete but I can't find anything that's worth it.

I’m starting to realize that I need a new strategy. I can’t keep looking for properties that will cashflow because I feel like I’m wasting my time at this point. I really want to invest in RE but I just don’t know what to do. Any recommendations? What other ways can I invest in RE in the current market.

Hello everyone! I'm a 26 year old from Long Island hoping to acquire my first rental property by the end of the year. I do pretty decent for my age, and I live at home still, so I've been saving up a lot of money. Sad reality is I'll probably own a few rentals before ever moving out. That's just how it is here. With that being said I'll obviously be focusing on out of state.

I know Ohio is mentioned a lot around here, specifically Columbus, and I'm an Ohio State alum, so that would be pretty cool to secure my first property in Ohio. I'll be looking for long term rentals that don't need any major repairs initially. I'm terrified enough of doing this out of state, so I am not interested in additional complexities with BRRRR. I'd feel comfortable investing ~$50k to start off. Seems like I could possibly get a duplex with that kind of down payment. I've considered going Dave Ramsey and buying a house with cash and upping my budget to $100k in a smaller market, but that would blow almost all my savings, and $100k just doesn't get you much anymore. Plus I need to leave my folks' place at some point lol. So loan it is.

A few thoughts/questions on my mind that I hope to learn as I continue my real estate journey:
1. How do you actually strike from out of state in a timely manner?

2. Tips for setting up an LLC

3. How can I connect with local investors?

4. I'm terrified of doing all this research, finding a "dream" property, only for it to fail and negative cash flow. What are common things beginners overlook?

 Thank you for the clear and concise answers Jimmy! Columbus has been coming up a lot and would love to learn more. Do you have any more materials to share with me about the market? The metrics I'm primarily focused on are: rent appreciation rate, property appreciation rate, economic growth rate, unemployment rate on the macro level.

I am in CA too and it is a dead end situation with prices and very little prtection for landlords.  I am exiting the rental market here (love living here tho). Strongly suggest scoping out GA, TN, OK, PA, AL, IN, etc.  Lots of info out there.  Look for Facebook groups too.  Good luck.