BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - BiggerNews: This Area Has the BEST Cash Flow Potential in the Country

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

“Lake Effect” cash flow is starting to make landlords rich in this under-the-radar region of the United States. For the past few decades, mainstream real estate investing platforms have almost forgotten this region, and we’ve even overlooked it a few times. Here, landlords can buy affordable homes, make serious cash flow, and see significant investing advantages they can’t get in most other areas. Where are we talking about? Salt Lake? The Great Lakes? Lake Tahoe? Welcome back to this week’s BiggerNews, where we’re discussing everyone’s favorite subject—cash flow (and a LOT of it). We brought Real Estate Rookie co-host Ashley Kehr, a predominantly cash-flow investor, to the show to share why her home region is finally getting the recognition it deserves for real estate investing. If you want the residual income that will lead you to financial freedom and an early retirement, this is the region to look at. You can buy homes for a fraction of what they cost elsewhere, all while getting surprisingly high rent prices, leaving you with a serious supply of cash flow at the end of the month. We’re talking about the MOST affordable cities in this area, why the tech industry is moving in, and one crucial advantage that makes this market almost future-proof.  In This Episode We Cover: “Lake Effect” cash flow and why it’s making landlords wealthy in this affordable area  The most affordable (and cash-flowing) markets in this under-the-radar region Why more and more tech companies are moving into this overlooked area  Appreciation potential and the cities with cash flow AND rising home prices  The “booming” area that has serious infrastructure support for more jobs/businesses  And So Much More! Links from the Show Join BiggerPockets for FREE Let Us Know What You Thought of the Show! Get Banking Built for Landlords with Baselane Ready to Start? Grab “The Book on Rental Property Investing” Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area Top 10 Real Estate Markets for Cash Flow in 2024 Real Estate Rookie Podcast 10 Deals on a $20K Waitress Salary With Ashley Hamilton Connect with Ashley Connect with Dave (00:00) Intro (03:22) Still SUPER Affordable (08:32) Most Affordable Markets (11:30) Tech Industry is Moving In (14:57) Climate Resilience (18:56) Under-the-Radar Markets? (28:58) This Area is Booming (32:18) Even More Advantages? Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1035 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a sort of hidden under the radar region in the U.S. that may be one of the more profitable ones for investors right now. It's not exactly the Midwest. You can't really call it the Rust Belt anymore, but it's the entire Great Lakes region. Today, that's what we're talking about. Hey, everyone, it's Dave, and I'm joined from right off Lake Erie in Western New York by co-host of the Real Estate Rookie podcast, Ashley Care. Ashley, thanks for joining us.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I have to say when I first saw the show topic, I kind of laughed a little. It was like, you mean the rust belt? No, but I feel like that negative connotation keeps people away from what could be a great region to invest in right now. Yeah, and I think there's definitely promise in this region that we're going to talk about today. All right, good. Well, we came up with this show topic. I'm glad to hear someone who's actually there investing there right now thinks there's promise.

So the reason we actually came up with this show, if you all we're listening a couple weeks ago, Henry Washington, frequent contributor to this show, coined this term that I can't stop thinking about. He called it, quote unquote, lake effect cash flow. And if you've ever lived in the Midwest or in the Great Lakes region, you've probably heard this concept of lake effect snow, where there's just so much snow in this area. But the same area that experiences this lake effect snow also has some of the best cash flow potential in the country. So Ashley, today I want to talk with you about the advantages for investors in the Great Lake region right now and any potential detractions or risks that you think are in the area. We're also going to discuss a couple of specific markets like Chicago, Detroit, and a couple other smaller markets.

And I'd love to get your opinion on them. So Ashley, let me just ask you first, is this term that Henry made up like if that cash flow true? Is it actually easy to get cash flow in the Great Lakes region? Well, at least in Buffalo, New York, I can say from experience, yes, this can happen is you can get cash flow. And when we did another episode about what markets to invest in and you had given us a list of, I don't know, a thousand different markets, one of my top picks was actually Erie Pennsylvania, which is another Great Lakes. And I didn't even know I'd be able to use it for this show too. Yeah, we're making it very efficient for you. You just have to research one market.

I actually do invest in this region as well. I don't live there like Ashley does and don't have as much experience in the area. But for me, I've been able to find cash flow on MLS deals. It's not like it was 10 years ago where you're getting a 10% cash on cash return. But I at least have been able to find cash flow positive deals with some upside through rehab in this region. And I assume that's the same for you in Buffalo. Yeah.

And then I should ask as well, I know you invest in Buffalo. I think also in Erie. But is all of your investing experience in the Great Lakes region? Everything is outside of Buffalo, New York. So there's a couple deals I've done in the city, and then the rest are in the suburbs and rural area of Buffalo. And then one random flip in Seattle, Washington, and a couple passive. But other than that, most of my experience has been just in the Buffalo area. All right.

Well, we've now established you're the perfect person for this episode. So tell us what are the administration? advantages of investing in this area? Yeah, so the first one is the affordability, especially for a new investor just getting started, the low price point of purchases, but also not having to give up, you know, other kind of metrics such as, you know, low rental prices. There's actually pretty great rent-a-price ratio in these areas. And like New York, you have to be careful because the 50% rule doesn't work there because property taxes are so high. So there is some give and take, but in states like Ohio, the property taxes aren't as high.

And there can be some more affordability in those areas. Can you explain to everyone what the 50% rule is? Yeah. So the 50% rule is that 100% of your rent, say it's $1,000. That means your monthly expenses should be 50% of that, such as your mortgage payment, your property taxes, your insurance. And in some states, that can be easy to hit. and then and others, that can be very difficult, especially if they have high property taxes or you're in somewhere where there's a high insurance premium that you have to pay every year.

That's exactly right. And so why do you think the region has remained so affordable? Because I think you could say, oh, it's affordable because no one wants to live there or that there's no economic activity going on. Is that the case? I think that was the case and it's taken time for that revitalization to happen. So in Buffalo, for example, there's a lot of waterfront along Lake Erie. And for a long time, it was just an old industrial buildings that sat there. And there's been a lot of revitalization as far as canal side where now there's a whole concert venue. There's events going on constantly. There's an ice skating rink. There's a kid's play area. All this stuff going on that's happening in there. But there's still even room for more growth along the waterfront. And when I was researching some of the other cities, it seems to be the same that they're constantly working on revitalizing that waterfront,

but it's not there yet. It's not as great as it could be. And I think it's taking time for people to realize that there really is this great natural beauty of the Great Lakes. And it has this stigma still of being the rust belt. I think that's sort of this pendulum that swings back and forth, right? Because people and businesses tend to look for affordability. And it seems that in the last, let's say, decade, a lot of people were moving to the southeast because it was relatively affordable and businesses were moving there and people wanted to go live there. Still, there are places that are relatively affordable in the southeast. But a lot of places have gotten super expensive. And so when you look around the country where there is good affordability,

it's places in this region. And you start to see investment in this region because it's cheaper for businesses. I mean, you probably know this in your area. In Syracuse, Micron is. building a big chip factory. We see another chip manufacturing plant going in in Columbus. You see Detroit's revitalization. You see a lot of investment in places like Milwaukee and in Wisconsin. And that eventually brings jobs and brings revitalization. And it does seem like we're still sort of in the beginning stages of that. And we haven't seen that it's certainly not the same level of business investment that you see in places like Austin and Phoenix and Tampa. But I wonder if this is sort of the opportunity to get in before a lot of that pendulum swings

back in the other direction. And I think people are still living off that COVID stimulus high, where having to move into affordable areas wasn't really what anybody was doing. They were moving to where they wanted to live because everybody was making so much money. And I think that now that that's slowly going away where it's not as great of a market now that people aren't making as much money as they did right after COVID, that you will see people have to move to these areas because of the affordability where nobody wanted to move to that. They wanted to move to sunny Florida. They wanted to move, you know, into Arizona where it's always nice and warm. So I think that over the next couple of years, we could see more people moving into these areas.

is because of the affordability where I think in the past couple years, people moved for lifestyle. Definitely. Yeah, that's so true. And just for some data here, affordability in the housing market on a national basis is actually the lowest it's been in about 40 years. But it's super interesting because in the U.S. has some of the least affordable markets in the entire world, like Seattle and Los Angeles. But we also actually also have the most affordable. market in the entire world, which is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, also in this region. So you can see that relative to income, there actually is quite a lot of value to be found in some of these markets. So let's talk about some of those specific markets. I actually published some lists,

you know, all the time on bigger pockets. And we put out our best cash flow markets earlier this year. And three of the top 10, at least, as measured by the rent to price ratio, not a perfect measurement, but it is sort of a proxy for cash flow. Number one was Peoria, Illinois. It's not right on the lake, but it is in the region. Also, Pittsburgh, as I said earlier, and Duluth, Minnesota all made the list as some of the best cash flow markets. And when I made those lists, it's not just rent-to-price ratio. I also only looked at markets that have like solid fundamentals as well, so places that have good population growth, have job growth. And so those are three markets that, if you're listening to this right now, you could confidently say there are strong fundamentals in

and might have good cash flow, provided that you obviously do your research and find right deals. Yeah. And with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, instead of just rentals, even if you're looking to flip, I found several articles that stated that was one of the highest ROI cities for actually doing flips to. Really? I wonder why that is. The article said different things. I couldn't find like a concrete source, but it was pretty much reigned from like 100% ROI to like up to 130% ROI. All right. That sounds good. I would love to do that.

I've actually never been to Pittsburgh, but maybe we should go. All right. It's time for a break. And then Ashley and I are going to break down our favorite Great Lakes markets for investors. Stick around. Managing properties can feel like a full on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties. and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident.

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damage, liability, and even loss of rental income. Now is the perfect time to review your rates and coverage. Get a quote in minutes at biggerpockets.com slash landlord insurance. Steadily, landlord insurance designed for the modern investor. Welcome back to bigger news. Let's jump back in with Ashley Care. So in addition to some of those markets that have the best cash flow, Ashley mentioned that one of the advantages of this region is affordability. And actually, a lot of the top affordable markets are in this region. Just for example, on our list at Bigger Pockets, number four was your hometown, Ashley, Buffalo, New York. Number six was Indianapolis, which is growing like crazy Indianapolis. And then number seven is Cincinnati, not exactly on the lake, but it's kind of, it's in Ohio, which I guess you would say is in the region. Yeah, so love to see Buffalo on there, of course. I think one thing with these cities, too, is you really have to niche down by neighborhood and get to know, like, what are the neighborhoods that you want to be into?

Because the cities are so broad as far as what will actually produce good cash flow. And by good cash flow, I mean, you're not having to deal with a lot of crime or you're getting quality tenants in place, things like that. So when you pick a market, whatever one you decide on, make sure that you go deep and you actually look into each neighborhood. Well said. And yeah, that's going to apply for every market that we mentioned on this list. Obviously, just talking about them on a super high level isn't going to tell you exactly where you need to invest. We're just talking about sort of high level potential here. But let's move on.

We talked about that there was like three main advantages to this region. First one was affordability, which we just discussed. What's the second one? The second one is industry. So what industries are in these areas or moving to these areas? So a really big one is tech. There's a lot of grant money and government funding going to tech across the country. But I've noticed that a large portion of it has gone into Ohio, New York.

I think Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was one too. Yeah, Pittsburgh. I mentioned this on the show recently, has like a lot of the robotics industry. in the U.S. is based out of Pittsburgh. There's a lot of universities there that focus on that. So I don't know anything about robots, but I would imagine that that industry is getting a lot of attention and money right now.

Well, one of the things I found was that there's a top 200 list for like research universities in the world. And 22 of those are located around the Great Lakes, like in the West Belt region. Yeah. And they said that's part of driving the tech industry into those areas because they work with the universities for research. I thought that was interesting. That's really interesting.

And we're obviously, in addition to that, seeing some government incentives play out. I think it was two or three years ago, there was the Bipartisan Chips Act to bring a lot of technology onshore as sort of a national security measure. And a lot of the Great Lakes region is benefiting from some of the investments.

There's sort of like public-private investments in the area as well. Yeah. And the last thing to add on that is water tech. Water tech is becoming a bigger and bigger industry, and the Great Lakes are perfect because of the natural freshwater source there to actually develop water technology. What is water tech? I had to Google it too when I was reading about this. Okay, good. I didn't know that was like common knowledge.

But basically it's like a technology that water can be used as a source to run it. So like you think of like in Niagara Falls, how water is used to source. electric, okay? But also as to, you know, freshwater is being eliminated. How can they study freshwater? How can they, yeah, do different things? I don't know. Don't ask me on the excerpt. That's just what my Google search said. Wow, that's super interesting. I'm into it. Water tech. Yeah. Yeah. And you also do see like it's not where it used to be, but there has been a modest revival in American manufacturing. And I think that we'll see that reflected across this region. And depending on the outcome of the presidential election, like there might be more investment

into American manufacturing that this region might benefit from as well. Yeah, and I think part of the hard part of revitalizing the manufacturing and then industrial that shut down in these areas was the environmental that needs to be done. When these buildings were built and when some of them were manufacturing, there wasn't like the laws and regulations there are today. So like just the environmental cleanup can be so cost. and expensive to make it worthwhile for a developer to come into these areas. I mean, that's sort of a theme across the United States, right?

Like, this is one of the main challenges to housing supply in the United States. It's like a lot of this stuff, legacy, pollution and stuff that needs to get cleaned up and trying to prevent it in the future add significant time and expense to these types of projects. All right. Well, that's our second advantage. So far, we have affordability and we've got industry. What's our third advantage?

climate. I knew you were going to say this. You know what? And Dave, I would notice we're both bundled up to talk about our northern cities here today. But yeah, so you wouldn't think of when I say climate, everyone's probably thinking,

what are you talking about? Oh, Buffalo is known as the premier climate in the United States. But I will say, first of all, you get four seasons, which is really nice. So you get to experience the different seasons.

So lots of different activities based on that. But as far as climate, we're talking more about climate resilient cities, okay? And then also the fact of natural disasters, which I mean, with Hurricane Milton, we're seeing a lot of damage in certain areas from these natural disasters, which can be devastating. And I just can't imagine like owning a whole portfolio and somewhere and having my portfolio wiped out in a day and having to restart and rebuild. So natural disasters have always been like something I am very cautious of and think about a lot.

I went and looked at this article that was done by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And they did a chart of the U.S. And they put in as to how risky is this as a city? And they took 182 cities and they labeled them one to 182 on a scale. Of the Great Lakes, they were all up high as to very, very, very low risk up into the, you know, 170-ish range as far as not being at risk for a natural disaster. So that was hailstorms causing damage, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and wildfires. One thing that they did not account for was snowstorms, but a snowstorm doesn't usually take out

a city or take out neighborhoods. You know, you have roofs collapsing, people stranded, things like that, which can be detrimental. But as far as like really bad natural disasters, you don't see a ton in these regions. Yeah, I think that has become really relevant, at least in my own thinking about investing recently. It's, you know, obviously terrible when these things like Hurricane Milton or wildfires impact these communities. And I don't want to belittle like the human cost of it. But it is also an economic issue, especially with investing. Because I, at least I have experiences in Colorado, you know, I have some property that's in wildfire range and people had to evacuate from those properties. And it's super scary one to lose your home

and your income from that. So I've obviously gotten business interruption insurance since them, but it's really difficult to get properly insured in these types of areas. And you're, just starting to read about some of the fallout of Hurricane Milton and a lot of folks, unfortunately weren't able to get proper insurance and they're going to be coming out of pocket for a lot of this. So from an investor, obviously the more you can minimize disruption from natural disasters and lower your costs from the risk of that through insurance or through taxes, the better. And I'll mention the tax thing because I actually was interviewing someone on the market about this. And he was talking about how it's not just insurance costs that go up because of

natural disasters, but also cities start to be more proactive about preparing for them. And they start building infrastructure and seawalls and building out the fire department, whatever, in Colorado and California. And that costs money. And so they wind up raising property taxes or income taxes in those areas to help mitigate the risk of natural disasters. So I think there's a lot of reasons why you should be thinking about this in your portfolio. And another reason why, as we've been talking about, the Great Lakes region has some

promise here. All right. So outside of Buffalo, do you have any cities that you really like in the Great Lakes region or think have a lot of promise? Yeah. So just a couple things on Buffalo to start is, like, I do think that it's great for cash flow. It's affordable. But the thing is also New York State isn't landlord friendly. So that's just something to be cautious of. Also closings take a really long time because it's in a, you have to use an attorney for closing too. So like don't just rely on some source of data, like look at all of the metrics and, you know, what's the give and take on that. Erie, Pennsylvania, I just had to mention that again because of the affordability, the rent-to-price ratio, but also, too, for a short-term rental, we really didn't talk about the Great Lakes

for short-term rental investments at all. And there's a lot of opportunity in Michigan, Wisconsin, for owning short-term rentals on the lake. But then in Prescile, too, has almost the same amount of visitors as Yellowstone everywhere. Yeah, you told me that, which is insane. I can't believe that. That's wild. Yeah, so it's like if it was a national park, it would be like number five or number six as to most visited park across the U.S. And then some new markets that I'd never looked at before are Decatur. I don't even know if I'm saying that right. And Springfield, Illinois, Springfield is in central Illinois and Decatur is right next to it, but they had pretty similar metrics. In the last year, they had 9% increase in home prices and 9% increase in rent. And Decatur

actually hits the 1% rule too, but they're known for the really low cost of living, not only in Illinois, but also across the U.S. And in Decatur, the medium home price is 112,000. Wow. Which is pretty low. And the rent for that was like 1,100, 1,100. So it hit the 1% rule. I feel like there's this thing. going on across the country where like rents are all kind of peaking at the same range. Like if I look at a rental property in Seattle and I look at it in Chicago, which are two totally different home price points, like the rents aren't that different, but the entry point is so different, which obviously improves the rent to price ratio.

But I also wanted to just shout out that like the examples you just gave, I think, really counter the narrative that like, oh, these markets have cash flow, but they don't have a appreciation. And that was true for a long time. But I'm just looking at the data we used to prepare for this episode. You look at Syracuse, it grew 11% last year and 62% over the last five years. And obviously, COVID was crazy. But like, you know, it's still continuing in a lot of these places. Like Springfield, Ohio is at 9%. You see Rochester, New York at 9%. Erie, Pennsylvania. You just called it out. 8% Green Bay, Wisconsin, 8%. Like those are well above the national average.

So we can't say for sure that we'll continue. But obviously, if you invested there in the last few years, you did get cash flow and you got a lot of appreciation. One last thing to add to Illinois, too, is it's a landlord-friendly state majority. I mean, and then Ohio, too, as far as being in the Lake Effect cash flow region, Ohio is a landlord-friendly state, too. Yeah. And I invest in Michigan also. and that's kind of like middle of the road.

I don't think it's like particularly in one direction or the other, but pretty average in terms of tenant landlord laws. It's time for a break, but we'll be right back on bigger news. There are two kinds of real estate investors, those who have reviewed their insurance and those who think that they have. Most don't realize their coverage wasn't built for how they actually invest. Vacancy periods, rehabs, short-term rentals, or LLC-held properties. These gaps surface only when filing claims.

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your first report. Don't overpay the IRS. Head to costsegregation.com before April 15th. All right, we're back. Here's the rest of my conversation with Ashley Care. Ashley, what do you think about some of the bigger cities? Because we've talked a lot about smaller areas, but there are big cities, some more polarizing than others. So I'm just curious about your thoughts. What do you think about Chicago? It's huge. And it is, to me, it's like the most, by far the most affordable big city in the United States. And that's intriguing. Yeah, I did look into Chicago a little bit. I tend to definitely stay away from big cities. And it's just because I've had such great success in the suburbs and rural areas of the city or outskirts of the city, like South Buffalo, things like that. But in a

smaller city, of course. So I didn't look into this a ton, but I looked at Chicago and then also Detroit because Detroit just like intrigues me as to what is going on as far as like, you know, it just has such a bad stigma. But when I looked into Detroit, I found actually there's so much like going in to Detroit to make it better. And like when people actually come, they're actually shocked as to what's happening there. And I think it definitely needs to go a lot more. but there's a lot of money being put into the redevelopment and revitalization. And four or five years ago, Ashley Hamilton was on as a guest on the Bigger Pocket Show. She was a Detroit investor.

And I actually just saw her at BPCon. And she is still, our business is still thriving in Detroit doing burs and having her rentals there and doing some flips. So she has seen great success in Detroit. So I'm not super familiar with Chicago. Did you have some information on that one? No, I think it's sort of the same thing you were saying before. Like, I find Chicago interesting because there's just so much economic activity there, but people are leaving the city or at least the population has been declining.

So that's what that worries me. But there are pockets of Illinois and the suburbs that are growing. So you hear these stats where it's like people are leaving Chicago. And some of them are leaving the state. But actually, if you dig into the data, most of the time, when you hear, oh, people are leaving Chicago, they're actually just moving to the suburbs. And so that means a lot of the areas around it are growing. And so I'm particularly interested in that.

I also just personally, like I have family in Chicago, so I'm there frequently, and I like the idea of investing places like that. But I sort of echo your feelings about big cities. As an out-of-state investor, I find it a little overwhelming to go to these big cities and try and understand them. Like, if I lived in Chicago, I feel like I could figure out the right neighborhoods to make it work. But for me, I find it easier to go to a city that is like 100 or 200,000. There's fewer neighborhoods. There's like fewer pockets of economic activity. It's just easier to wrap your head around. So I've just sort of gravitated to those types of markets as an

out-of-state investor. But I think there are really good opportunities in these less expensive markets if you know specifically where to buy. the data is more specific when it is a smaller market. Like if you're looking at Chicago as a whole and you're looking at these numbers, they can be so construed as to where exactly like, okay, this one area has brought it down so low, but it's just such a tiny spot. Like say unemployment, let's use that as an example. Like it could just be this one area. The unemployment rate is really low, but the rest kind of averages high, but that one spot really skews the spectrum of it, I guess. So that's why, like, analyzing any type of big city, you have to go in, like, by neighborhood and look at the data by neighborhood. Because, like,

Dave said, like, it could be people moving out to the suburbs to. And yeah, so I think just be, like, cautious with the big cities as to just because you see this date on that, make sure you're knowing what actual neighborhoods to invest in. Totally. Like, I just did a property in. in the west side of Buffalo. So I knew nothing about it. And I had to lean on my real estate agent. And I literally walked around the streets. I went drove the streets.

I looked at like, okay, what's the retail? What's the restaurant? What has opened? What has closed in this area? And I had to do a lot of research because I invested in South Buffalo, which I've had phenomenal success. But like, let me tell you, when I listed that property, the tenant pool was very different.

there was different expectations of what needed to be in the property, just the whole experience, even though these were, you know, 15 minutes apart, not even in the same city, it was completely different process for me. That's a great point. And you really need to go walk these places. Like, we're talking about this at a high level. If you're considering investing any of these places, please go visit. It really makes a huge difference.

It's worth the plane ticket in the one-night hotel. I was actually, I think I told you this story, but I was looking at a couple different markets I liked on paper in this region. I was in Chicago with family. I just rented a car and just drove around. And I wound up not liking a lot of the cities I liked on paper and investing in ones that I didn't think I was going to like just because the vibe was right. And it was easier to sort of like understand the path of progress and like what kind of tenants you were going to get in certain cities. So I want to echo that. And do also want to just say the data about cities.

can be confusing, just so you know, a lot of data collected by the government or wherever is, quote unquote, the MSA, that stands for Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is like both the city and the suburbs. And so, like, I was looking at this list. We're referencing here, Ashley, and said that median home price in Milwaukee is $350,000. And I was like, that's just not right. I've looked at deals in Milwaukee. They're like $150,000.

But the suburbs around Milwaukee, there are some very nice ones that are 600,000. And so you're getting this broad average from a lot of different types of neighborhoods. And so pick these markets based on some of the fundamentals. But then, as Ashley said, you really got to drill down into them. All right. Last thing, before we get out of here, Ashley, I got to talk to you about Western New York. And if you haven't heard of this area, I think I grew up near New York City and we called everything upstate.

I was going to say, I'm very proud of you, Dave, for acknowledging Western New York. Yeah. If you get more than an hour north of New York City, it was upstate for when I was growing up. But then I went to school in Rochester, which is in Western New York. And this is kind of the area, I think, what would you say? It's like Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse kind of is the main big cities. And this area is just booming housing market-wise over the last couple of years. Why do you think that is?

Well, I think that it's probably the most affordable area in New York where you're still, like by major cities, I would say. Like you go far off state. You're in the Adirondacks where there's Watertown maybe, which still isn't that huge of a city. And then you do have Albany. Honestly, I don't think Albany is as nice as Buffalo because I went to school there.

I can say that. And then when you're in central, you have the Finger Lakes, which is beautiful. But also there's not a huge city. Like Syracuse would be the close. for that or Rochester. So I would say probably that is to you're getting towards a major city.

Like Buffalo Airport is probably besides in New York City, Buffalo would probably be the next largest airport in New York. That's right. Yeah. And there's a lot going on up there. I actually, you see these investments that you're talking about. There are a lot of big companies, at least where I went to school in Rochester, like Xerox and Bowson Loam, I think paychecks, the payroll company, Kodak,

all based out of Rochester. There's a lot of big companies. And I was reading this article the other day. I think this actually applies to the whole Great Lakes region, is this idea of surplus infrastructure is what it was called. It was basically as the country grows, the population is growing. There are a lot of places. People are moving to Texas and Florida.

There's a lot to like there. But they don't have like the highways and the airports in the same way that a lot of these great lakes places do. A lot of that is because, because people left those areas for lack of economic activity. But what's promising is that it can support growth, like you were talking about. There are good highways in place. There are good airports in place. There's all this infrastructure that would support a bigger and growing population that obviously jobs have to come first. But if those jobs come first, these areas are really well positioned to ingest new people and sustain long-term growth. I think another thing to add is the sports teams do in Buffalo is- Oh, yeah. The building. The Bills Mafia? The Bills are the only NFL team that's actually in New York State because the Jets

and the Giants don't play in New York. That is a very good point. And having to go to school up there, Bills fans are absolutely insane in the best way. You're a Bills fan, right? Yeah, yeah. Do you go to games? Yeah, I take my son. Well, I got a Cowboys fan, an Eagles fan, and a goals fan.

Oh, my God. I'll be going to Dallas. in a couple weeks to go to a Dallas Eagles game. Oh my God. That'll be very fun. Yeah. Nice. All right.

Well, Ashley, that's all we got. Anything else you want to add about the Great Lakes region before we get out of here? Yeah. Just a couple other advantages to investing there are the amount of grants available to trying to revitalize that you can tap into. So my dad, small business owner, has a small property that he has his business in. He's getting ready to retire. and we just filled out a grant for $1.6 million to revitalize his shop.

So it's not like you have to be some huge developer to get access to these grants. They're available in these towns surrounding the Great Lakes that you can get. So I think looking at that, talking to your local officials, they can really help you finding what grants are available because that's what we did with his building. They'll pay up to 75%. of the cost of doing the renovation on the property. Yeah. Wow.

Okay, that's a really good tip. That's huge, yeah. So hopefully we get it. Wow. Yeah. How long does it take? Is it super bureaucratic? I don't know.

It starts at the local level and then it's a state grant. So then it goes to the state level. And then I just think the waterfront is a huge attraction. I mean, people pay a lot of money for lakehouses, but having these huge lakes, the waterfront opportunity that's still available there. and just the fresh water. Yeah, I went to a wedding in the lake area of Michigan. It was so, I had no idea how beautiful it was there.

It was incredible the beaches that they had there. Yeah, I've seen, like, on Lake Michigan, particularly, I've seen a lot of, like, Instagram reels of, like, people who are investing there or vacationing there and just, like, how they're like, don't tell anyone about this because we want to keep it to ourselves. Don't tell them. We're posting this on Instagram, but don't. tell anyone. By the way, I'm a real estate agent contact meet to my house. It's a secret.

Oh, God. Now we're just making it even worse by talking about it on this podcast. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much, Ashley. Appreciate your time. Of course, if you want to hear more from Ashley, you can hear more from her on the real estate rookie show. And if you want to hear more of this podcast, we'll, of course, be back next week with more episodes of the Bigger Pockets podcast. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer.

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