Ha .. Right a few thoughts and yes, My brother does have a good sense of humour but thanks to those for leaping to my Tolstoyesque defense... !
1) locals are buying if they have cash..and big style. Many on bulk from the banks or on the auction steps in investment groups. You will see many of these come up as flips... Caveat emptier. They will literally make 5-10k on an overnight flip...sometimes doing nothing to the property. These are not foreclosures but I. Bad cases misrepresented as. Then others are those who walked away from there 200+k mortgages, in the 2 years it took to evict them, they bought a house in the wife's name for 50k down the road... Funny but not helping the housing crisis and a big occurrence in Vegas leading to mass misrepresentation of the true foreclosure rate at least in that city... My non statistically significant observation would be about 1 in 8 following this trend.... It is crazy.
2) I bought SFR's because the only thing I could see was the inevitable glut in housing and people ultimately would want to live in a house versus an apartment for the same rent. The multiple family props that I could afford would be the first to be vacated and if the worst occurred, become ghettos. Some may well end up bulldozed. That simple. I can't wear 20% vacancy and am not wanting to take the NRA's stance on the second amendment either. Plus vacant properties astonishingly lose things like copper pipes, a/c units etc. I have the luxury of undercutting apartments in rent, guaranteeing full occupancy and yes, absolutely and sadly causing, in part, a non productive downward cycle in rental returns (although interestingly Vegas has maintained high rents due to a number of reasons). Thus 3br/2ba.... If doomsday occurs, I will in my worst case scenario get 10% yield and still have 100% occupancy.
3) my brother has fought the hard battle on tax file numbers and SSN's and covered that.
4) if you are wanting to buy foreclosed properties with leveraged funds, figure it out from Australia. ELOC's on existing Australian properties have worked for some as unsecured funds. They tend to allow about 50k... Just best not to say what for...
Oh just remembered.. I looked quite a bit at Denver for friends.. I wouldn't do it because of the snow issue. Maybe for a long capital growth play but I didn't see any major yield returns. I don't buy for pretty cities... Mine is simply a 5 year play and then out ...to pay off today's debts with tomorrow's $$... Again hopefully not worth rupees by then.
Property management... I have a great network of people thank god and would strongly say that purchase is not going to be anyone's major issue... Managing while you wait for capital appreciation was always my major concern. Good tenants mean only going in once a year if they turnover but things happen and you need to figure out that side without slaughtering your yield. I lived Vegas whist doing the properties and worked that out so whatever market you are in, ask people you trust... Real estate agent is a great start... They won't recommend bad people if they think you are still buying...!
Now back to the Cup.... No posts tomorrow