Landlord Shmandlord has an important question to ask yourself before you purchase an investment property in a new town:
How are you going to inform potential tenants that you have a place available for rent?This is one thing that I was extremely lucky with when purchasing my first real estate investments. There is a popular weekly circulation which _everybody_ in the town religiously reads, and in fact is the only place I need to advertise when renting an empty apartment..
The circulation is distributed every Thursday night to quickmarts, grocery stores, donut shops, and others within a 20-30 mile range. It contains items for sale, service advertising, and most importantly rental advertisements. It has become the definitive source of pricing rentals, and is where everybody looks.
Before purchasing an investment property in a new town, I would highly recommend looking into how potential tenants find available apartments. There are towns where there is not a good source, and it will be more difficult for you to determine the fair market value, or even rent your apartments. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t buy in these places, but if you do you should deduct a higher vacancy/maintenance percentage when calculating your monthly cashflow.
Photo by Gene_W.
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