All Forum Posts by: Pat G.

@Chirag Dhruv Other than it seems that the whole US is moving into some part of GA over the last 5 years?

Landlord Friendly

No Snow

Growing population

Again, I am in commercial not SFR. I would check rent.com and apartments.com and see how many homes are for rent in the area you are looking at buying and then compare their rents to local apartments.

@Michael Rashfal As someone who has owned billboards I would check to see if the billboard and an easement for access are parceled off with its' own parcel ID, from the property that it is on or next to. If it is not, you are going to have to separate that from the land that it is located on. I didn't check for that and the seller who owned the land went into foreclosure and I lost the billboard lease as it was not a separate parcel for the main parcel. 

If the property it is located on has a bank mortgage you will have to get that bank to release that part of the land from the larger part before you purchase the sign. 

Also, you are going to have to set a ROI that you can live with on the purchase price. It does seem high, but is it a digital board, how many billboards are in a 2 mile radius, what is the traffic count of the road it is located on -high the better. Does the city have a moratorium on new signs going up. All things you need to find out. Frank used to own his own sign company in TX and knows more than I, check him out.

Good luck and hope this helps.

First, How many units is it? That would dictate having a on-site property manager or not. My research using bestplaces.net indicates Columbus population increased 8.63% since 2000, it's unemployment rate is 7.0%, which is higher than the US rate and other cities in GA. The average home price is $84,300 which is below at least $100,000. This is because you want renting to be cheaper than buying a home, if the home prices are lower than let's say $100K it may be cheaper to own a house, hence you will have trouble filling your apartment units. And also I look for a Median Income about $40K per year. Because a good rule of thumb is that people will spend up to 30-35% of their income on rent. The lower the income, lower the amount of rent they are able to pay. This is just my experience, not law. 
Sorry for getting to deep, I hope that this helps, at least a little. 

@Paul Reiland I would get in contact the building or planning office and see what the set-backs are for Light industrial zoning in your town, where the parking and driveways have to be. You may be surprised that that 1.5 acres may not be enough, or you may have to remove the house to make it work. 

I then would contact a local industrial broker and talk to him on what he thinks he can lease the size property out for that the city says the property can fit. You may want to just sell the property off to a developer, which is another choice. Unless you have a lot in reserves, development may not be the correct path.  In development you have site plan approval (which may take several months to years), permits, Architectural drawings, underground, and then building of the building, and then finality lease up time.  

Hope that helps

@Kristen Ray You are very welcome.

I am assuming you are looking at getting into Apartments? There are so many Pros and Cons to list here in a post. One word of advice is to get educated and focus on what you are targeting. I mean how many units are you looking to buy, 20 to 100, 100 to 150, etc. What class of apartments, A, B, C, or D? And lastly what state(s) are you looking at buying in. 
Once you get your "Target Property Type" then things become easier. Because once you sign up and start getting Brokers packages, it will take you seconds to say NO or Yes.

As far as states I would look in Landlord friendly states only  Click here first to narrow that part of your search. The link is to RENTcafe's blog, there are others as well but you will see the same states on all the lists. 

On the education side, there are hundreds of videos, podcasts out there that you can learn the foundation and found your niche and then pay to go to a seminar. When I started there was no podcasts, or videos only in-person seminars and cost a lot of money. 

Hope this helps - Happy New Year

Good Stuff. Thanks

@Neal Bawa Thank You for that information - very helpful.

@Keith Meyer Keith I have heard the same on the Dodd-Frank front. Thanks for the advice.

@John Jacobus

Thanks for the Podcast link. Love a good podcast.