I am considering buying an investment property in Tuscaloosa or College Station.

Does anybody here have experience in either location? Any investment property experience in General would be appreciated.

Reasons for Tuscaloosa: I am familiar with the area. Good contacts to keep the place rented out to students. Good location for the price. Growing(but not as fast as CS) low taxes.

Reasons for College station: a lot of students/growing area/a lot of transient workers coming to area for jobs(utility workers/road construction etc.) close to where I live now.

Let me know what you think.

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Posted by I Love Bama

Alabama

Member since Nov 2007

37737 posts

Posted on 6/5/14 at 12:02 pm to cjared036

I think any real estate investment in a college area is a bad idea. No way would I invest long term in Tuscaloosa.

Everything is inflated around colleges due to the student loan bubble we are in. Factor that in with the enormous growth we have bad because of Saban, makes me uncomfortable.

Out of state kids will stop coming once the winning stops. The supply and demand factors are just not organic.

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Posted by nelatf

NELA

Member since Jan 2011

2296 posts

Posted on 6/5/14 at 12:45 pm to cjared036

I have seen a lot of money made in smaller college communities with off campus student housing.

Just off the top of my head I know of deals in the following towns that print money for their investors:

Monroe, La
Ruston, La
Hattiesburg, Ms

The key is getting low cost funding and the controlling the construction process.

Find a market where student housing has been neglected in campus.

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Posted by trillhog

Elite Membership

Member since Jul 2011

19407 posts

Posted on 6/5/14 at 1:39 pm to cjared036

what's the cap rate strip centers trading for in those area's? with national tenants.

quote:
I think any real estate investment in a college area is a bad idea. No way would I invest long term in Tuscaloosa.

I think it depends on a lot if you can get enough property's to assemble plot that can be Multi-family. Just owning a bunch of crap rent houses in random spots would be slow go imo and having to maintain them a pain. The biggest money being made around campus here is site assemblers as i call them buying up a block and then flipping it to a large multi-family developer. this takes time though.

This post was edited on 6/5/14 at 1:45 pm

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Posted by horndog