The Best Places to Put Your Real Estate Dollars

Top Five Markets in the Nation for Investors

Inman News, a leading Real Estate Industry news source, recently completed an analysis of hundreds of U.S. markets to determine those best for investors. The full report and research is available at Inman’s website, here. To compare and rank the markets, the researchers took into account the median sales price of homes, population and unemployment statistics, loan data, walkability scores, foreclosure sales and discounts statistics and more. Information was culled from respected sources including Realty Trac, CoreLogic, the U.S. Census Bureau, SmartZip and others.

The top five markets, according to the report, are:

1.         Indianapolis-Carmel, IN.With an unemployment rate somewhat lower than the national average, a population rate somewhat higher, and the lowest median sale price of the top 10 markets, Indianapolis ranks number one on the list for investors.

 

 

2.         Winchester, VA/WV.  This market had the largest increase in population of all the markets looked at, rising nearly 25 percent in the last decade. Its combination of a decrease in median sale price year-over-year with an increase of over 60 percent in home values expected in the next 10 years (the highest projected appreciation rate in the top 10 markets) makes this area a prime opportunity for investment.

3.        Gainesville, FL.Between the huge university and several hospital networks located in this area, Gainesville can boast unemployment rates roughly 25 percent lower than the rest of the state. And although the median sale price was down from last year, the projected ROI for a property bought today over 10 years is well over 250 percent.

4.        Tucson, AZ.The number of distressed sales in Tucson is the highest of the top 10 markets (over 45 percent of sales were foreclosure sales, close to double from the same period last year). This means an abundance of affordable properties in a market where SmartZip, a company specializing in real estate analytics and ratings, projects a 10 year ROI of 225 percent.

5.        Tallahassee, FL.Households making the median income saw the supply of affordable houses increase more than a third from the previous year, and nearly 40 percent of all sales have been all-cash purchases. For “buy and hold” investors, this market is ripe with opportunity — in fact, at the end of March, active investor loans in Tallahassee represented nearly 50% more of the market’s loan activity than the national average.

To see the full reportand read more about these markets as well the other five markets that round out the Top Ten list, visit the Inman News website.