To any investors of real estate for rental property in the U.S. (or abroad with U.S. property) where would you say a good place to search for property would be? By good, I mean most lucrative. A D.C. suburb has already been taken care of but it's exciting to think about expanding property holdings to other areas. I'm much too chicken to do the stock market, so this would be my preferred kind of investment. Actually it would be interesting to have properties in other countries as well, but I'd not have the first clue about how to go about doing that and finding a trustworthy manager, etc.
Yeah a lot depends on the manager side of things. If you are managing yourself then obviously it should be close enough not to cause a lot of trouble if you need to visit more often than expected. The upside here is that you also know the area from personal experience and you might see/know things that affect the price... things you might miss if you were not living close by.
Yes, very important to me, crimsonghost... if it's in another state or across the country, I sure wouldn't be managing it myself, so it would definitely take a manager that can be trusted. I was asking for ideas of good locations that would be lucrative... any ideas on that?
Well I am willing to bet that there is some good data out there when it comes to population growth over time when it comes to cities and metropolitan areas, so simply by doing a little research I would think you could narrow your search down. You can look more into it too though and see where steady growth is if that is something that you are looking for or something in a particular industry or market.
From what I hear, Florida is one of the best places to invest in real estate. My brother-in-law who works in California said that Florida is the land of tourists (locals and foreigners alike) because of their warm weather. And since it is in the coastline, beach resorts is the order of the day. What's good in investing in a Florida house or even lot is the resale value which is always stable. He said that it was not affected by the recession that hit the US some years ago. That means Florida properties have ready buyers all the time.
My husband's aunt lives in Florida and she says that it really has a generally warm climate that attracts people from other states especially because of their beaches. Most of the tourists who want to have a break from the cold weather from their places of residence usually go to Florida for a warm break.
Florida might not be a good place to think about buying investment property. there is a glut of condominiums in Florida and Las Vegas that have been sitting on the market since roughly 2008, these properties are over priced and have huge maintenance fees that will have to be figured in. The first thing to ask yourself when you are looking for an investment property is 'How many are in the area and more importantly why?" A pretty sure fire place to purchase property is around college campuses, you have to be mentally prepared for what will go with that, but there will always be a demand and it can be quite lucrative despite the headaches. Investment properties can be found just about anywhere you look, take the time to do the research on the comps in the area and the population census. I know people like to hope on getting nice retired tenants, and that will happen for awhile, but eventually their will be a shift towards younger folks and families. One very nice area I have consider is Gettysburg PA, they really are building it up very nice in that area, many shops that are convenient to foot traffic and you have the best of both worlds with tourists and students.
@My401K, I wonder if the Florida properties remain overpriced amid the absence of buyers. As with the law of supply and demand like what is happening to the prices of oil in the world market, the prices tend to go down when the demand is low. But I agree that lucrative properties near the college campuses. As they say it here, where there are people, there is business. That is one spiel of a presidential candidate in the Philippines - to move the universities and colleges in the rural area. That would be a big boost to the economy of the provinces particularly the jacking up of real property values.
