Investor · Atlanta · Member since 2019 · 597 posts · 99 votes
Hi,
As I umam unable to find decent sfh, duplex, triplex, quad etc deal I like to search nearby cities around 4 hours drive like charlotte, Birmingham and some cities near South Carolina and Tennessee etc. Which website like Zillow, Redfin, realtor etc help search in multiple markets in one search stroke rather than searching 10 markets 10 times separately. I do not want paid service though which are expensive for investor like me who is not pro yet to spend all money before making it. Please advise
Gp, I look at other Southern markets the same way I look at Memphis — one buy box, applied the same everywhere. Single-family under $100K, all-in cost that clears the 1% rule, ARV $180K-$265K, and rents that support a DSCR refi at 70-80% LTV. If a market can't hit those numbers, I don't force it — I move on. The mistake I see is people collecting markets instead of deals. Pick two or three, learn the ZIPs, the rents, and the wholesalers in each, and run every deal through the same four numbers: price, rehab, rent, ARV. Deal flow is the bottleneck, so depth beats breadth — I'd rather know three markets cold than ten markets a little. Which markets are you comparing right now?
Saved searches on the big portals work if you set one per metro with the same price and bed filters, but what you'll find is mostly retail. In Birmingham the better rental deals tend to be off market or need work, so the search tool matters less than knowing which neighborhoods hold tenants. Narrow to 2 markets and learn them block by block before you spread across 5. What's your target price range and strategy?
@Gp G., You don't really use those mainstream sites to find a good investment property. It's people finding deals for you off market or you searching yourself to find the best deals. Been there done that. I can help you search. When nothing near you pencils, I'd pick one market within that drive and learn it well before searching ten at once. Good deals usually come from knowing a market well enough to move fast, and a wider search mostly shows you more retail listings. I've lived in Georgia and North Carolina, and I'd be open to giving you my read on those markets. Could you get to the market you pick in person? Which strategy would you run there?