Rental Competition

[David Sumner]

Hello Everyone,

I'm looking to acquire a couple of buy and hold properties and was researching different areas. I've yet purchase my 1st property and in looking at various neighborhoods there are certain ones that appear to have a number of rental available.

Should I avoid areas with a lot of competition for fear of having a hard time renting my unit? Or are there other more important factors at play?

[Jeff B.]

Issues for a purchase are

• demographics of the city (economic factors)
• growing or shrinking {jobs, population}
• vacancy factor (imo, above 10 is deadly but what's the right single digit?)

My multifamily is on a street with only other multifamilies, so we are exposed to competition every time there's any 'for rent' signs.