All Forum Posts by: Tony Schmucker

 Hey, Getting back late, I can see where we are having large wage growth. That is mostly related to how low wages were for years!! Just 7 or 8 years ago, many would need to start at $10 or below. I have a tenant that was driving to Nashville to work at McDonalds because the pay was so much higher. We have had several new companies come to town and provide more jobs. Maybe just enough to offset the population growth. 

I have not really noticed changes to insurance. But, i may not be paying close attention. 

Good Luck with your search!! If you make it here, we have several good REI meetups. Lots of people willing to share.

 Hey Tony, I see you have Clarksville on the top of your list. Clarksville is still a good market(Not as great as a few years ago) to invest. I have been here 50 years and seen the growth.

The good…

-Prices more reasonable than Nashville. 

-Not Nashville, but can be there in less than an hour. 

-Still growing community. 

-New Factories and expanding Factories

The less than good. (if you are going to also live where you invest)

-The infrastructure has not been able to keep up with population growth. (Traffic, long waits at restaurants, Did i say Traffic, Not a diverse town for activities)

-There seem to be a lot of vacancies for lease and lots of people also looking to lease. The market pushed prices up so quickly and wages for most have not gotten them back to par. 

-Tornados!!  Yes, seems we have been hit by tornados every other year for the last 15 and had many others since the mid 90’s. 

Not long ago, you could find 1%+ deals just throwing a stick. Since 2020, I have seen some houses more than double in price. 

Overall, i do not consider it a bad place to live if you can get used to the not so good. We also have several REI meetups monthly. Let me know if you want more info. If you decide to come visit the area, let me know. Can show you around.

I house hack a duplex in Nashville! It's a great way to ABNB in the area. 

Welcome to the community! 

I love to see that most of the cities you have chosen is in the Midwest/southern area! I bet you heard but the market around those areas are booming right now, especially since it is a buyers market, it gives you an advantage to get better deals from sellers while people are continously moving there, especially for jobs like tech, logistics, etc. 

I am currently near the Nashville area and it has been great! So many people have been moving here from different area codes. Nashville is only about an hour away from Clarksville, so you will meet people from both cities. Definitely a good start into stepping into a bigger city with you being from WA state

@Tony Schmucker if it were me, it would totally depned on a ton of differing factors that you may not be measuring (some outside of investment real estate).  For example, what is the cost of living now and projected in the future?  What is the political environment within the community and state?  Landlord friendly?  Growth minded?  What's the health care system look like?  What industries are moving in now?  What is the long term plan for the city and the state?

I'm born and raised in Iowa (actually a suburb of Des Moines), I now live 2 hours away in Cedar Rapids, because I like this market better.  However, I've always thought of the state of Iowa as home first and the investment potential second.  It turns out with inflation and cost of living soaring across the US, my intuition may be leading others, like yourself, to call Iowa home as well.  Good luck in your search and decision, I'm sure it will be a good one!

Welcome to BP, Tony! Good to connect.

Hello Tony! Stoked you're here.. are you leveraging any real estate meetups or local investor events yet?

@Tony Schmucker Now that you know all of those markets work from a Macro perspective you should look to see where you want to live for 2-3 years and what your and your wife's income will be in those markets. In other words if they are all acceptable places from an investing point of view, change your perspective and look at the other things they have to offer. 

I lived in St Paul for 19 years and now live in a suburb of St Paul for the last 6 years. It's objectively rated as a great place to live, but obviously you need to be ok with Winter. Figure out a way to narrow it down. You will always be able to find a place once you have a city.  If you do decide on MN, did a similar analysis as you a few months back in St Paul with rent-to-price ratios based on median price and median rents for each neighborhood in St Paul. HMU and I will share it with you.

Sioux Falls is great, I live here.  Property values only going up up up for decades.  Like most places with growth though, it's hard to find properties to cash flow given interest rates etc.  But if you know what you're doing in finding the properties and want a fixer upper, it's doable.

I will say that the multi-family rental market is pretty saturated here though.  Developers have been on a building rampage for the last 5 years, so we've got brand new apartments sitting vacant and properties less than 50% full in many areas of town.  Lots of competition for tenants at this moment, which has been dropping rents down, rent concessions etc.

Good luck on your journey!

@Tony Schmucker

Welcome to Bigger Pockets!