Show HN: Find Where to Buy Investment Property

plathq.com

1 point·plat12··3 comments

Interesting, and a good start, but none of that info is hard to come by, basic irs and census data. I think I would need more then some basic public stats to make good investing decisions... For instance help on how does one use all those numbers to make a good investment, would be more helpful. Also some local knowledge on why certain areas stand out in certain data sets, would also help inform good decisions. Not as states and their politics are equal. The text at top does mention these things, but doesn't really elaborate much.

For instance an area in california that doesn't have a lot of recent home sales will stick out as having really low property taxes, which is not reflective of the tax rate you would pay when you buy in that area.

Agree that the raw data is easily available. However, I couldn't find any great free interactive maps/tools combining this data at a national level.

In addition, going from price and rent to cap rate is already relatively complicated, as expenses (such as property management, homeowners' insurance, repairs, ...) have a sub-linear dependence on price or rent. This sub-linear dependence is included in the map. Using a fixed-percent model for these expenses will artificially inflate C-class cap rates, while artificially deflating A-class cap rates.

Planned additions:

1. Filters - To answer more complex questions

2. Landlord/Tenant-Friendly States (also fiscal solvency of states ... to estimate risk of property taxes rising rapidly)

[edit: formatting]

Created this to help new out-of-state real estate investors find a great place to start building their real estate portfolio. Feel free to email me at kalki [at] plathq.com.

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