- As single-family home prices hover around record highs, real-estate investment opportunities can be tricky to identify.
- Some locations are better suited for investment than others, according to longtime real-estate investor Cody Sperber.
- He said he finds four outside-the-box places in the US particularly attractive in 2021, including Topeka, Kansas, and Lakeland, Florida.
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Smart real-estate investors are almost always on the lookout for new opportunities.
And as some areas of the US face projected home-price decreases over the next year while others are primed to grow in demand, some areas are ripe for investment now, according to lifelong real-estate investor Cody Sperber.
Sperber is the self-described “clever investor” and founder of “for-purpose” development company Green Elephant Development. He started investing in real estate with no money to his name, and has climbed his way to hundreds of million in deals using strategies from house flipping to rehabbing and more.
Sperber told Insider that 2021 is the year of the “urban purge,” as people continue to migrate out of big cities for affordability in what were once flyover states. As a result, he’s focused on markets in flyover states from Idaho to Texas, where he can buy affordable properties to either renovate and resell for higher prices or rent out to tenants to generate passive income.
When it comes to location, Sperber looks to areas where job growth and population growth are high, investors are active, appreciation rates are strong, and local government is landlord-friendly. Factors like these can make a big difference for an investor’s bottom line, he said, as overhead costs, tenant laws, and a number of other financial factors vary by state.
That said, choosing the right location is key to generating income from real estate. Miami and Austin may be hot with tech and finance professionals fleeing the West Coast and Northeast — but that doesn’t mean they’re the right spots to invest. For one thing, prices may already be too high.
With that in mind, here are four under-the-radar cities Sperber said real-estate investors should keep an eye on if they’re looking for profits in 2021.
