Best location for an investment property?

With regard to the thread on international home values, what area would be the best bargain basement investment property purchases be in?

Just wondering

Detroit?

I guess you cant lose any value there

About the same here, $2500 for an 8800 sq-ft building with a 1/2-finished 3500 sq-ft apartment. Should have it done & be moved in this year! We'll have about $70k into it(farming out most of the work, as I suck at building trades :( ). But even then we should have no problem turning a profit if/when we sell.

Now if I can just get a good tenant/contract-buyer for my existing place.

I think it depends on what kind of property you are looking for and how you expecting make money on the investment. I would be looking for places where there are jobs. I am not sure there are many in Detroit.

Detriot will have a housing glut for quite a while. I think I'd avoid that area. I'd look into a small apartment complex in an area with jobs, those will typically pay their own way quite nicely.

z31maniac wrote: Detroit?

If I had 5 grand sitting around, 20 years to wait, and some guts, I would buy a block of Detroit. The same things that made it a hub of American industry still exist there. A few more years of Chinese and Indian workers getting higher pay, and Americans getting hungry and desperate could result in a Detroit renaissance.

Or not.

College campus. Find out if any area schools are closing a dorm soon.

I figure that the apartment building I'm in cost about... Eh, figure $300,000-$500,000. The rent that my roommates and I pay is $1700 a month (utilities included), and it is a very basic 4 bedroom apartment. One of the cheaper places to live per person as well. Clean and functional, but not luxurious at all. Stop and think about that. How much are you paying for your mortgages? I could get a damn nice house in this area for a $1700 mortgage/utilities payment.

In reply to aussiesmg:

Do you really want bargain basement or do you want a really good deal for the area that's likely to appreciate.

Oh, and if you're planning to rent out the place, let me tell you from current experience that remote landlording blows dead goats. And in my case that's with someone I trust on the ground.

mtn wrote: College campus. Find out if any area schools are closing a dorm soon.

college town. rent to chicks. they don't punch walls, and sometimes they can't pay the rent with money.

BoxheadTim wrote: In reply to aussiesmg: Do you really want bargain basement or do you want a really good deal for the area that's likely to appreciate. Oh, and if you're planning to rent out the place, let me tell you from current experience that remote landlording blows dead goats. And in my case that's with someone I trust on the ground.

^^This^^ Times 10.

Investment and property are two words that have been rarely used in the same sentence in the past few years.

AngryCorvair wrote:

mtn wrote: College campus. Find out if any area schools are closing a dorm soon.

college town. rent to chicks. they don't punch walls, and sometimes they can't pay the rent with money.

"Honey, I had nothing to do with this comment"

OK, now the CYA is in place, I am seriously looking at College towns as stated, within my daily radius is also high on my list. Of course my radius is about 200 miles.

Rents in Stillwater, OK, make me wish I had a few properties.

10 years ago we paid $800/month for a run down 3bed house.......

cleveland works for me, picked up a rental projecterty for 5k last week. going to take about 4 grand to get it nice but once done i have a list of people who want to live in the neighborhood. planning to buy at least one house per year of similar price and condition. it's about 40 minutes from my house but my sister lives right around the corner and keeps an eye on it when it's unoccupied.

The Moon.

What? You laugh, but President Newt will make it happen.

The "conventional wisdom" I heard recently is : don't invest in a property UNLESS you wouldn't mind holding on to it and/or living in it yourself.

Where my folks live, few people are building and so there is a shortage of housing. The downside, tho, is that with the whole shale gas "thing", land costs have skyrocketted. My sister has a waiting list for her house if she moves (which she says she just might do in the next 12 months). Her 3 bedroom, 2 and 1/2 bath SINGLE car garage house is expected to sell for nearly $200K. And no, it isn't brand new or a "custom-built" house. And it's in a small town in upstate Pa.

jrw1621 wrote: Investment and property are two words that have been rarely used in the same sentence in the past few years.

I know my landlord (shop) has made a little over $300,000 from me in the last ten years; in a building he bought at the right time for $40k.

Buy productive farm land with water and timber on it near a small town. No or limited zoning and within a half day drive would be bonus points.