What makes a good investment property?

"What am I looking for if I'm looking for an investment property?"

As I was just driving in the car. I figured I would rattle off some answers to some frequently asked questions that I get. But as I'm driving, it makes me think of one thing. The neighborhood that I'm in is a nice, family neighborhood. There's a park with kids swinging and stuff right now over there, well-manicured lawns, some mature trees in people's yards, but just single-family, detached homes.

But as I was kind of cruising around, what I did notice was that even in these nice neighborhoods, these nice, suburban neighborhoods where everything seems pretty well-maintained and well-manicured and people take care and it looks like people have a lot of pride in their properties, in their homes, you can't ever always lump everybody into, "We're all good, we're all fine, and everything's going well," because even within nice neighborhoods like this... Look, here it is. You get houses like this.

This bad boy's all boarded up. The roof, yeah, you're going to need a new one of them. It needs all new siding. But for what it's worth, obviously it looks like nobody's living in there, they just had the grass cut. So somebody is paying money to manage the property, maintain the property, but it's all boarded up and it doesn't look like anybody's lived in there for a little while. So if you are thinking about investing in some real estate and all that other stuff, this is just one of those things. As you get around and you're driving around neighborhoods make sure you keep an eye out for houses that are boarded up. The funny thing is, is they're in just about every neighborhood.

Other things to look for, because I get that question a lot, "What should I be looking for if I was looking for an off-market deal?" Places that just look like nobody lives there, like the grass is really high. Sometimes you'll see mailboxes that are exploding with all sorts of the little grocery store circulars. But stuff like that, or the grass is really high. It looks like it hasn't been cut in a long time. I've seen stuff where the gutter that's supposed to be up on the roof is just down and hanging across the front door to get into the building. So, those are some key signs for potential investment opportunities.

This property too, you can't even see half the house because this big old tree/bush thing is just overgrown and it's taken over the front of the house. But you could see behind that, that there's holes in the roof, and this property needs some love. But, frequently asked questions, "What am I looking for if I'm looking for an investment property?"

That!