Listen — even before I was a real estate agent, I was a real estate evangelist. I think owning your own home is almost always a great idea, and I also think owning other real estate (rental properties, etc.) is a fantastic investment if done wisely. However, I know for those who live in areas where the housing market is super-expensive, owning even your own home may be out reach. Even if the monthly payments are doable (since you are already paying rent which is usually more expensive than a mortgage), the down payments can be the deal-breaker. Or, maybe you are a small business owner and you already have a loan for your business that makes getting a mortgage in a high-priced area difficult. But, if your mortgage payment was significantly less than what you’d pay in your home state, investing in real estate might be a possibility!
Enter Nashville. Nashville has been ranked the #1 real estate market in the country for 2017 by Zillow. Our home values are rising, we have a strong economy with jobs and several corporate headquarters. We aren’t just country music; we are ALL music…and healthcare, and automotive, and higher education, and more. And our region is still growing by 100 people a day! What’s more, our rental market is strong…all those aforementioned musicians and other newcomers frequently rent — so investing in a rental property is still a good bet. And even though there has been some recent tightening up on permits, short-term rentals (like VRBO and AirBnb) are killing it right now.
You can find a cute 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch in East Nashville/Inglewood for $250k (which is where many of the newcomers want to live). You can find homes even cheaper than that, with land, less than an hour from downtown. There are downtown condos on the market today from $229k to $1.9 million. There are single family homes within 10 minutes of downtown at multiple price points. AND, property values have risen an average of 24% since 2013 in the entire Metro area, and as much as 57% in some neighborhoods! If you’d like more information on the investment potential of different Nashville neighborhoods, you can start research here. If you are interested in becoming a real estate investor, you should consider joining Mashvisor, which is a fantastic tool to calculate ROI for investments. Click here if you’d like a 5-day free trial and 20% off your membership.
As an investor (different than an owner-occupied property), it generally takes a 20% down payment (though sometimes you can do 10% and pay PMI), and the rates are usually a bit higher (around 5% right now). But, if you are making a few hundred dollars a month, and the property is gaining in value, you could have monthly income as well as selling the property in a few years for a profit.
All this to say, Nashville is a great market to consider investing in. If you are remotely interested, I encourage you to do three things:
- Register on my website leisawilcox.com. Poke around, view properties, and just see what’s out there. Call me if you want to talk about any of them!
- Just for fun…contact my colleague Brent Haas with Movement Mortgage. Tell him I sent you, and you are considering purchasing an investment property. Let him run the numbers for you to tell you what is possible! You can reach him at (615) 477-4383 or brent.haas@movementmortgage.com.
- Keep me posted, I can keep my eyes open for specific properties as well. I’d love to help!
So…would you like to buy a house? Let me help you find your Home (or Investment) in Music City!
You can reach Leisa Wilcox at 615-813-1813 or lw@homeinmusiccity.com.