Quote from @Crystal Smith:
Quote from @Linh Khuc:
Hi All,
I'm from Western Suburb of Illinois and have been actively searching for multifamily property to invest and hard to come by a reasonable pricing, still have some meat in the bones to invest. I've been expanding my search to further North and South Suburbs including Rockford, Peoria.....found some properties in Peoria.
Rockford and Peoria is about 1-2 hrs drive from where I'm living so I need a property manager if I decide to invest in those areas, overview of Peoria is class A, average rent is $800, unemployment is ~ 9% compared to typical ~6% of Illinois. Rockford is class B with average rent is $770 and employment is ~10%, median income from both areas ranging from 40-50k/year, data is based on bestplaces.net.
Overall numbers, unemployment, income, rent....are not as good as the western suburbs so I'm debating should I stick to the western suburbs or move out to those areas ?
In my humble opinion you should continue to look for opportunities in the Western Suburbs while exploring the North & South suburbs and be prepared to hire a property manager if you find something that's too far away. The wonderful thing about Chicago is it's size and diversity of opportunities.
Crystal,
Agreed and that's what I'm doing, keep looking for the western suburbs market and investigating the Northern, I actually looking into Rockford, Loves Park, Machesney Park, connecting with investors, brokers, PMs in those areas, what I've seen so far is Loves Park, Machesney Park are better than Rockford, cash flow is pretty good, PMs are available and with PM fees, properties in those areas are still generating cash flow, this can't be done in the western suburbs at this point, any properties popped up and if I add PM fees, it'll neg cash flow and of course, there's a down side in the Northern Suburbs, slowly appreciating.
