We're on pause. We are cash buyers & didn't pick up anything in 2024. We can't make the numbers work anymore. Prices have increased significantly & our area's rents are fairly stagnant. There are no super high paying jobs here & no college students. Houses that we looked at last year were priced higher than ever & still needed renovation to get top of the market rent. We've had a pretty big influx of out-of-staters & TX urbanites moving in because everything is cheap to them. They are coming in and fixing up some real eyesores - beautiful historic properties - to homestead which is good for our existing properties, but not for new purchases.
Our goal has always been to get purchase price & renovations back in 5-7 years. That's always worked for us in the past but not now. Currently, we are looking at 10-15 years just to get our money back & we're getting too old for that. That said, we used to buy really cheap houses in great neighborhoods that needed everything & did 90% of the work ourselves, so it was doable. Glad we started in 2015 but really wish we had started in 2008...