Bad Time to Buy First Rental?

[Matt Moffatt]

I bought my first house in Broken Arrow back in February before most of the rate hikes kicked into effect and, since then, I've gotten much more serious about the goal of starting investing in rental properties (discovered BP). At the time, I was working for a bank and keeping a close eye on the economy and the Fed, but I'm a little disconnected from that now. 

I'm in a position where my savings are going towards my wedding that I'll be paying for come March, but I have an interesting situation where my mom is possibly interesting in being a partner and providing funds where deals are available (asking about partnerships and how to handle this situation will probably need to be a completely different post...). 

My questions is: from what I'm seeing, rental rates, according to rentometer.com, seem to be so outpaced by prices that, other than looking at BRRRs (which isn't exactly my preference staring out since I don't have a strong enough network yet to have a good contractor and I'd be using funds other than my own), there aren't many opportunities for COC returns over 5-6%.

To be fair, I've only been looking on the MLS so I guess that's the catch and maybe that's how it always is. If the solution is to drive for dollars, send out mailers, look at foreclosures, etc, then I guess that's the solution but I'd at least like to get confirmation that I'm not crazy or doing my calcs completely wrong... Also wondering if all markets are being hit the same way right now.

Thanks for any help!

[Joe Villeneuve]

Quote from @Matt Moffatt:

@Joe Villeneuve Are you saying that no matter what economy we're in the rental rates will rise slower than home prices so you won't be able to find deals on the MLS? Price appreciation due to supply and demand is pretty simple to understand but I've never spent much time understanding what causes rental rate supply or demand to change and affect prices. Maybe that's something I need to understand better

No, what I'm saying is that deals are always out there, no matter what the economy.  They are specific to whatever market and strategy that is used to make it a deal.