While I focus my investing in the Midwest, I’ve seen that the key with finding an investor-friendly agent (no matter the market) is making sure they actually understand numbers—cash flow, STR regulations, and rehab costs—not just the MLS listings.

The IRS regulations recognize work that’s done in anticipation of starting a business as part of the activity.

Meh That's exactly why I love regulation and licensing.

For me, they can be a great way to boost cashflow if the numbers pencil out, but they also come with more moving parts like seasonality, local regulations, and guest turnover.

@Ibrahim Mawri I've not worked on car washes specifically but have been a part of ground up builds or conversions, and in general its all going to be site and local dependent.You don't want to just get an understanding of the zoning, but also to your point any new, or changed regulations triggered by the repurpose. 

I have had numerous instances where I sent a deal to them, structured it for the client and then the client circumvented me on their retail channel.

In CA land prices, regulations that push up costs to build, fuel prices that affect everything manufactured and shipped on trucks or trains, regulations imposed on employers that push labor costs through the roof, insurance costs, make it very difficult to build new.

I live outside Boston, so out-of-state feels like the best path for me.I’m drawn to MTRs as a good middle ground: higher cash flow than LTRs, with less day-to-day management (and regulations) than STRs.

There are numerous opportunities in Real Estate Investing (REI).

Hey everyone,I’ve gotten pretty solid with the numbers side of investing, but I’m still struggling with the research side.Right now, I feel like I’m spending way too much time manually looking up things like:Rental demand in specific neighborhoodsLocal rental regulations / restrictionsCrime stats and school ratingsAverage days on market for rentalsHousing authority info (for Section 8)General “desirability” of an areaThe issue: sometimes I’ll find a property that looks great on paper, but then realize I actually have no idea if people want to live there.So my questions are:👉 Do you all have a systematic approach to this research?