Greetings! New to BP - Live in San Diego

[RM Smith]

Greetings BiggerPockets Community.

My name is Ryan Smith and my wife, Melanie and I relocated back toSan Diego from Denver, Co in June 2016. After living a few cities, we realized San Diego was the best fit for us because like many others, we love the weather here. It’s expensive but we figure live where you want to live and figure out the rest. Life is short.

Like all of you, we love rental properties for many reasons including it’s a tangible asset, everyone needs a place to live, it generates passive income so you can reach financial freedom and it’s a proven business model over thousands of years.

All that being said, we have limited experience with real estate investing but have been involved with a few real estate investments including the purchase of two vacation rentals, a small office condominium and invested in a syndication outside the U.S.  We actually sold one of the vacation rentals last year due to new regulations.

Our goal moving forward is to invest in a mix of SFRs and multi-family homes so we can reach our real estate investing goals over the next 10 years. Our preference would be to invest locally so we have more control and can save money by managing the properties ourselves, at least to start. Are people bullish on any areas of the San Diego market over the next 10 years? Alternatively, can anyone recommend any other markets they’re bullish on? At this point, we’re really trying to figure out the best market to invest in so we can start looking for properties. Any input on how we should approach this would be appreciated. Obviously, trying to minimize costly mistakes. 

Thank you in advance for your feedback and I look forward to connecting with other members!

[Zap Martin]

Hello and welcome @RM Smith!

San Diego is beautiful! I've been here since college and then worked for the city of San Diego until I was able to leave my job to do real estate investing full time! There are a handful of areas that I think are great for buy and hold in San Diego where equity should rise. I hesitate to "predict" because anything can happen at anytime. But some things to keep in mind are:

(1) Buy right - no matter if you're in Logan Heights or Rancho Santa Fe, you want to make sure you are purchasing a deal at a discount if the purchase if for an investment property. 

(2) Chat with an appraiser - these guys (and girls) are perhaps the most under utilized people in the area. All they do ALL DAY is analyze property values. I work with a handful if you want some names and numbers. 

(3) Research - Taking a look at home values in a particular neighborhood over time will give a "big picture" perspective. Also, it's important to note the difference between *appreciation* and *inflation*. Without turning into an Econ Professor, make sure you are tracking both. 

(4) Have an exit plan - If you know how you want to exit the deal, that will help you. For example, I am working a subject-to purchase in San Carlos that started out as an offer on a flip. However, after realizing the seller didn't need all of the cash for the sale, I was able to change my plan and we're working out the details of this deal right now. A wholesale vs. flip vs. rental vs. value-add vs. lease-option sandwich... all of these are potential strategies to use. 

Best of luck and let me know if I can help out with anything here in San Diego!

Zap