Hi Lyn and welcome to BP. There's several investors here who would be interested in any wholesale deals you dig up and I'm one of them so put me on your list. There's still gems to be found in Charleston and the future looks rosy from where we stand now!
You selected a great market to ad to your international investment portfolio, let me know if you need anymore information on the area or just someone to run ideas past.
It all depends on what you're looking for. There are several definable areas around Charleston and all are experiencing good growth and all have pockets within them that I would avoid.
Are you looking for single family residential? Flips or buy and hold? Low cost fixer uppers or class A turnkey?
When evaluating the Charleston area, be very mindful of the characteristics of individual neighborhoods. My assistant ran comps today on properties that were in 2 different neighborhoods 1 mile apart. My instinct told me that something was amiss, so I checked her comps. She had mixed 2 neighborhoods that are vastly different, giving me an $85,000 ARV for a house that I would be lucky to sell for $40,000. The average cost per sq ft in one neighborhood (war zone 'hood off Rivers Ave) is $36 and the other neighborhood (Park Circle) is $150. a 1100 sq ft 2/1 house in one neighborhood is worth $40,000 and 1 mile away an 1100 sq ft 2/1 is worth $160,000. Houses of the same age and same style in the same zip code. @John Semanchuk or @Joseph Jurcak will vouch for me as to the mixed nature of real estate values in our fair city.
When evaluating the Charleston area, be very mindful of the characteristics of individual neighborhoods. My assistant ran comps today on properties that were in 2 different neighborhoods 1 mile apart. My instinct told me that something was amiss, so I checked her comps. She had mixed 2 neighborhoods that are vastly different, giving me an $85,000 ARV for a house that I would be lucky to sell for $40,000. The average cost per sq ft in one neighborhood (war zone 'hood off Rivers Ave) is $36 and the other neighborhood (Park Circle) is $150. a 1100 sq ft 2/1 house in one neighborhood is worth $40,000 and 1 mile away an 1100 sq ft 2/1 is worth $160,000. Houses of the same age and same style in the same zip code. @John Semanchuk or @Joseph Jurcak will vouch for me as to the mixed nature of real estate values in our fair city.
This is absolutely true (especially with the Park Circle area). I would add that it might be pretty hard to flip houses in Charleston from afar. You will be competing with a lot of investors who are here in person and to say it's competitive is understating it. You would need an experienced and trusted team here to make it work, I'd think.
I'm not an experienced international investor so others might dispute what I think but it just looks pretty hard to do to me. :-/