Understanding the best markets to invest in can be difficult at best for the citizen of the U.S., so this can be nearly impossible for a non-citizen to understand if a particular market is a good or bad for investing. You are left to rely on what some salesperson is telling you. Let me share some tools I use to help with the process.
http://www.littlebighomes.com – This website helps you know the trend of the real estate market your are investing in.
http://www.bestplaces.net This is a great tool that gives lots of data points to help in evaluating a market.
I am willing to help you understand the data that these websites give. Just private message me.
Enjoy
I find this website quite accurate for quickly assessing the likely rent in the US for a particular property
Rentometer.com-
This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by
Bennytee.
I may be biased because it is now my new home town. However, I think investing in a city like San Antonio is a smart choice.
San Antonio is expected to double its population in the next 10 years. It’s median age is 34. It’s home to a huge medical centre/research, headquarters to a number of major corporations and 3 military sites, good tourism……and thus, has a diversified economy and good property and rental growth. It is also one of the most affordable places to live in the United States.
Unlike most other cities in the US, property prices in Texas…..and San Antonio…..were mostly unaffected by the property bust experiences elsewhere during the GFC.
Btw – I’m originally from Sydney and relocated to San Antonio with my family a year ago. Still have investment interests in Australia and hope to expand in San Antonio once I establish credit here. Unfortunately, as a US resident, that’s a slow process. It was easier to secure financing back in Australia.
I think Trulia has to be one of the better sites in the US if you want local information about which state to invest in
Check this out on New York for example:
http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/New_York-New_York/It has crime with dates and type of crime, schools and stats on sales prices and market trends.
Then use http://www.realtor.com/
to find a property for sale. This is based on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) used by all the brokers in the US.
You can also download this app on your iphone, drive around the US and get instant data on houses for sale in your location. Or use the map view and search remotely.I also love rentometer.com as ten_bruner has pointed out. Very accurate and easy to use.
Hope this helps those looking at the US.
Only applicable to new York but http://www.streeteasy.com has a great feature how you can see what properties are listed for….and what their previous listings/sales prices were.
A couple of observations:
Rentometer.com is only good as a guide and can be hundreds of dollars out. One of my properties rents for $1200 a month. Rentometer has it at $888, another is $800 a month but rentometer thinks its worth $600. Years ago rentometer was over estimating so its good to see they are now under as its a better tool to evaluate with. Rents are going up at an incredible rate too.
Trulia is the bane of a Realtors existence. True they do get listings from Realtors who list properties on their MLS. There are many different MLS depending on where you live but Trulia do get a look in at them all. Some of their listings can be years old. This is one of my homes that is not for sale and Trulia have no right to have it listed with three Realtors. Realtors pay for Trulia leads and this is what they do. My tenant’s car is even in the drive way. 108 Kerr Cir Lehigh Acres if the link doesn’t work. A comparable house is on the market for $135,000. If you really want to find out what prices are in a particular area, find a Realtor and have them set you up on their MLS to receive daily emails of new properties on the market. The Realtor does not have to contact you or annoy you with emails. They simply set you up.
Ozzie in Texas. Look to all of the smaller banks. Many Australians who do not even live here can get finance now. Get on the phone and call all the Finance Brokers you can find and ask if they can help you. Go buy a sofa on interest free terms and pay it off in 4 months odd. Get a Toys R Us credit card. You will save on kids toys and build your credit at the same time. Hope you have an SSN or anything you do will be a waste of effort. This is the voice of experience lol. Two years wasted.
Cheers and Happy New Year all
Judith Ottosen | Outback Realty LLC
Email MeThis is a very good article about the oft-made mistakes of Aussie investors investing in the US.
10 Rental Property Red FlagsPerhaps we should mention the Detroit market as number 11….. ouch
Marisa
MTR:)Thanks for link
Not my cup of tea, though I have heard that some US savvy investors are making money in this market, but they live in the area and understand the beast, not for me, I will stick to States with sunny climate and that have continued to boom.Marisa
MTR:)Yes, stay away from Detroit. No matter how inexpensive the properties may be. The same can be said of anywhere in the “rust belt.” The rust belt starts in Michigan and makes a “U” pattern down through the east side of Illinois, the top of Indiana, Michigan, the top of Ohio, and up through western Pennsylvania and western New York state.
Yet they seem to be popular with some investors, I would say the lower entry level. I don’t believe they have experienced the growth that Atlanta, Florida, LV have had.
I agree with you, I also expect greater maintenance expenses due to the harsh climate.
Even better strategy. I woke up one day and realized that I didn’t have to wait for my own credit history to be established. All I needed to do was share good credit history on select credit cards that my husband held. Just add your name. That’s it. I jumped from poor to excellent credit in a few months.
We are buying in Atlanta and we are getting the deals but not using the same strategy as in 2011.
I will be posting some of these deals, before and after in due course.
We commence our development (5 townhouses) in January, but will be posting the final drawings on this forum and on the other forum.https://www.propertyinvesting.com/topic/5019560-us-investing-where-from-here/
Happy Investing:)
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This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by
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