Soooooo. I just got married. I don’t have a traditional job right now, but have about $1,400 coming in each month from my Michigan rental properties. My wife has been freezing her tuches (Yiddish) off in Vienna so we are going to do a road trip down to Florida for our honeymoon. We’re also going to be looking at places for rental properties. Right now I’m most intrigued by the Brunswick, GA area and an specific area of Fort Myers, FL. We’re planning on looking at places in at least the following:
- Savannah, GA
- Brunswick, GA
- Jacksonville, FL
- Orlando, FL
- Fort Myers, FL
I think more important than specific houses and rental metrics are the potential connections I hope to make. I am a big believer in the property manager makes or breaks a deal. You could have a great property, with the best numbers on paper, but if you have crumby management then your deal may turn into a disaster. Through some of the agents I hope to learn more about the areas (schools, big employers, etc.) and hope to get some good contacts for property managers.
I’ve been going on BiggerPockets to look on the forums (BiggerPockets is a great resource for educational material and forums where real estate investors talk shop, and everyone is very helpful) a bit to try and make some connections in some of these cities. Hopefully something comes up. I did see a thread that mentioned an association for property mangers, National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM®), which seems to be a cool search tool. I will admit I had never heard of this association, and don’t know what one needs to do to get into this group. That being said I did find a property manager in this registry in Brunswick so I may give her a call to get some insights into the area. At the very least I like that search tool, instead of just relying on Google.
Also by coupling our real estate search with having fun we’ll be able to deduct many of our expenses! Who doesn’t like to save in taxes?
If anyone has insights into any of these cities I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can either comment here or respond to jackallweil@gmail.com