Nationwide search

Real estate is all local. It's not easy looking for opportunities in other parts of the country. There are the "hot" markets that everyone knows about- Las Vegas, San Diego, Washington DC, Portland, Tuscon, Miami, etc. I liken these markets to the internet stocks of 2000 and you know what happened there. Looking for a good value and numbers to back it up, I've been visiting government sites like the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau. I like to look at the raw numbers myself and check up on some areas others have been hinting about such as the Twin Cities, Boise, and Austin. I talked to an old acquaintance of mine who does real estate in Austin and he says it's hard to find a cap rate there, though you can get 7% in the $3-5 million dollar range. I guess that's better than the bay area. The underlying economic numbers look better in the Twin Cities in Minneapolis. I know where I'll be vacationing this summer.

There was some interesting numbers I came across for California. For 2003-2004, real estate, rental, and leasing made up 41% of the change in real gross sate product. In absolute terms, the real estate industry contributed to 30% of gross state product in 2004. I'm waiting to see what the 2005 numbers will look like. The slowing real estate market is going to have significant ramifications for the state economy as a whole.

A friend of mine emailed a good website for finding out the price of properties. It's www.zillow.com. You can even see sales data for your area.