Columbus, Ohio - you can find single family homes starting around $50k in C- neighborhoods of Hilltop and South Linden. If you leverage with a 25% down payment on a multi family you can get a good 2-4 unit in a C to C- area.
Interesting. Both of us are Kyle C. and both of us are looking at getting into real estate investing with $50k lol. I'm also originally from California as well, so that's pretty weird.
Anyway, I'm new to this whole thing too and am still in the capital building phase so my opinion doesn't count for as much as everyone else here but I agree, Ohio is blowing up. Basically anywhere in the Midwest is going to be a fraction of the price of most of what you'll find out west so it might be a good idea to at least do the research and consider it.
I'm in the same position as you in that I have a full-time job so I'd have to make it a bit more passive but the amount of resources out in Ohio (as you can see by the number of responses from people here in Columbus) would make it very possible. The only downside is that the competition seems pretty crazy at the moment, so you'd have to network a ton to get decent deals, but obviously not impossible by any means. One option I'm considering, while harder with a full-time job but still doable, is flipping a few properties to build a bit more capital in the short term and using the profits to put toward a multi-family (maybe BRRRR). Anything leftover, or the equity that you pull out of the BRRRR, could then be thrown at a few more flips, and you rinse and repeat. This would obviously require a good team, particularly a good GC, but 100% within the realm of possibilities in the Midwest with $50k. I'd love for someone to correct me if I'm wrong since this is the process that I'm seriously considering, but might be something worth taking a look at.
@Kyle C. How much appreciation do you want? Ohio is appreciating faster than California...metro areas like Cincinnati, Columbus, and even minor metros like Dayton/Toledo are appreciating faster than San Diego. Here is our top 15 neighborhood appreciation over the last 5-years for Columbus MF
I do not know where you got you info for San Diego (I typically use NeighborhoodScout), but San Diego in its entirety would be #3 on that list (41%, source noradarealestate). It has many zip codes higher than any of those on the list. San Diego's 5 year appreciation is significantly higher than Columbus. However, I will state for the last 3 years Columbus has been slightly close (San Diego County was ~1.5% higher in the last year than the county that has Columbus: Source NeighborhoodScout). 3 years is a very small period for a buy and hold RE investor. Hopefully most investors that are buying with a less than 10 year hold are doing so on the basis of a value add and therefore are not dependent on appreciation.
So for this century here are the numbers (Source NeighborhoodScout): San Diego 159.6% (10/10), Columbus 59.0% (4/10). That is a huge difference in appreciation. If you go back 60 years, you will see similar outstanding appreciation for San Diego.
Nothing against Columbus, but comparing historical appreciation to the Coastal CA cities is a folly. Each of the following cities Neighborhood Scout had a 10/10 on appreciation for this century (last I looked): San Diego, L.A., OC (Orange), San Francisco, San Jose (San Jose may have been a 9/10). Compared to Columbus 4/10 (not even average appreciation, but doing well in the recent short term).
I will also add for this century, Columbus does better than other Ohio Cities that I have looked at. I suspect it has the best appreciation this century of the Ohio larger cities.
Thank you @Kyle Clark . As you gain more insights in the area please let me know. This OH thing is sounding very interesting, I'd just need to build a team of people I trust in the area.
I agree @Dan H....California may-as-well be a different planet...nowhere that I know of in the Midwest can come close for historic appreciation. Good info!
@Kyle C. Well you missed the double or triple over the last 4, 5 6 years in Cleveland, however I do not see things slowing down, there simply is no inventory . With 50k you can get two props, ( with a loan ) that will have rents from 1k - 1200, PP of about 75k,,,,,, So still good return,