Thanks in advance for reading my novel, lol. We're a bit overwhelmed at the thought of our major undertaking.
All-righty. And now for the big news that I am still
reeling over and will be for a long time. My H and I had a lot of
discussions this weekend and we decided that it is time we start to plan for
pulling out of NOLA. Not today, not tomorrow, not even next year.
But probably within the next 5 years. And, for our real estate investing,
our next purchases will already be somewhere else.
Long-term climate reports and global warming estimates look
bleak. Very bleak. Especially for coastal and Gulf Coast cities. We're worried that, over the next couple decades, people
will start moving out of here and it will cause real estate prices to
drop. Possibly even plummet. As it is, there were
around 60,000 who never came back here after Katrina. I only
pray that we're out and have our properties here sold before the next big one
hits. That could be a death blow.
Right now, we are trying to target where we would want to
go. The main qualification? It needs to have a great Return on
Investment (ROI) for real estate. Bonus if it doesn't get too cold in the winter, but we'll go where the money is. Once we decide that, we're going to
save longer and shoot for buying a small apartment complex there, in the next year or
two. As opposed to our current strategy of buying local houses and
duplexes.
Because of my job, I expect to stay in New Orleans for a few
years after that to pay down more mortgage debt. And start selling our real estate here. Including our own house 
. Heck, we might become renters for awhile
during this transition period.
My own house, sigh. I’m
sad at the thought of selling it in the next few years and am hoping/expecting
that time will lessen that. I love
it. We put so much love and work into
it. I expected to potentially live there
forever. There were also
a couple big upgrades I was really looking forward to doing. But now, I may as well not bother. They would really have been more for personal
taste than increasing the value. That
makes me a bit sad also.
Some of our rough, very rough without much research yet, front runners for a new area are:
- Kansas City -- the current favorite.
- Memphis or Nashville -- though, overall, we're kind of leaning toward getting out of the South all together (my H's personal preference).
- Ohio has some great towns for ROI and I have a lot of relatives who live there. But. Brrr.
- Rochester, NY -- Also Brrr. But, man they have some good real estate deals from what I saw over the weekend.
- Detroit??? -- This is way more my H than me. I think he's a bit nuts, but he believes Detroit is on an upswing for future economic growth and it is a good time to invest there. Would love to hear @kimmiinthemitten's opinion on that. From a real estate board I frequent, there are Detroit investors who make a killing. But they are local and know the neighborhoods inside and out. Very key for that area. They also target lower end rentals, which involves much more "hands-on, boots on the ground" management. Which wouldn't be us for another few years. Last, but not least. Brrr, lol.
So much to consider and so many decisions to make. I really just need to calm TF down, because nothing is happening any time soon. It is just a lot of "AAHHH" right now.