I think investing in out-of-state multi-fam is the right strategy and provides some balance to a BA portfolio dominated by SFH.
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Amen! Diversifying your BA appreciation play with cashflow multi-family is the way to go (at least for me). But I am not sure there are much deal for multi in Austin. @Elt1 can shine more light on multi market on Phoenix.
I invested in a group that built 250 units in Gilbert. 25% IRR. Rents going up at about 5% a year for new construction
https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/az/gilbert/
Just came across this old news on my Xilinx research:
The new centre will focus on baseband development, and employ over 200 software engineers once opened.
It follows the launch of Ericsson’s Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Design Center in Austin, Texas, at the end of last year to develop and test core microelectronics for 5G radio base stations.
I am on vacation right now in Las Vegas, when I get home next week I will look up the numbers for you.
With this news, I infer that Apple is cutting its costs in all front after the revised forecast. This is rare revision, happened 2nd time in the history of Apple.
That means Apple will silently move out (or rescind) all expansion projects, including Austin project, until future growth is revived.
hanera may not like to hear this, but Apple shelved similar expansion projects in the past until growth was visible.
Unless it is a nice new apartment complex, duplex, quadplex MF type units are not desirable outside BA IMO. Quality of tenants is usually quite bad.
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Similar opinion. That is your experience in Atlanta?
Yes. They are usually in undesirable areas, and generally you get the worst quality tenants. You will, however get good cap rates if you want to deal with the risk of vacancy and evictions, which I assume some people are going after. There’s enough housing stock in SFH / condos / new apartments that people don’t have to resort to a quadplex. I’d rather syndicate a large new apartment complex in Atlanta than get MFH unit. There could be some OK MFH exceptions maybe in the center of town next to the park , but that is not the norm. I was shocked when I saw how coveted MFH here were in the Bay area when I moved here (probably for cap rate reasons). You can get pretty decent tenants here in MFH due to the shortage of housing.
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Your good is theoretical right? After accounting for vacancy and evictions, is the effective cap rates still as good as the desirable neighborhoods? Ignoring your cost of labor and house appreciation.
Yea, theoretical. Never did the full calc on one, but I would guess effective rate would be maybe even (ie. not worth the effort if you have enough capital to deploy).
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I am sure other local tech giants will start austerity programs following Apple.
That old Apple campus announcement at Coyote Valley drove MH home prices up at par with Cupertino homes then for 9 months. It was Cisco’s intend to move headquarter to same place in 2000 saving money. Ditto happened to housing prices.
Sam Shueh
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@manch is quietly preparing to move to Austin. Downtown and Lake Travis are popular with Caucasians. You should go to North Austin/ Northern Suburbs.
I can see myself buying rentals in Austin. Maybe we should have a meetup in Austin sometime. 
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Downtown 
Popular places for rentals are North Austin, Northern Suburbs, SW Austin and East Austin.
Curious, if you were to buy in Austin, what are you buying for? Appreciation? Appreciation / Cashflow combo? I am debating myself on why I should buy more in Austin.
I want to try my hands at multi-fam but the regulatory environment in CA is pretty unpredictable. Besides it’s just too expensive. But then @BAJacket said multi-fam is undesirable outside of the Bay Area bubble and tenants are of questionable quality… so like you I am still debating.
My instincts is to buy for appreciation. That’s like a knob you can tune, right? So maybe I can sacrifice a little bit of appreciation and have more cashflow, like instead of 100% appreciation maybe 50-50?
Why are you hesitant on Austin? You don’t see much appreciation?
In markets like Austin in Atlanta you have the best of both, cashflowing and the opportunity for appreciation.
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The reason I initially went for Austin is it is combo Appreciation & Cashflow (probably 50/50 at that time). But now that cashflow is getting tighter, I felt it is more of 80% bet on appreciation and 20% cashflow now, and not sure it is good enough especially if we are already overweight in BA for appreciation and probably in Daly City you can get similar cashflow. I just helped analyzed someone from work for their 4-plex in SW Austin and barely any cashflow if you were conservative (600K price range). I am not sure if there is any better for higher density units. But my 3 yr old investment SFH is appreciated ~8% every yr, so not bad at all.
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