We’re always learning new stuff from our clients. Jason’s recent talk with David Porter is a great example. David is an expert on the container shipping industry, having spent many years greasing the wheels for the flow of imports into the United States. As a Empowered Investor Network client, he also knows what a great deal income property is and has developed a clever way to gain insight into the economic circumstances of the neighborhood surrounding a prospective income property.
We’re calling it the Free Lunch Metric and here’s how it works. Unless you’re specializing in Section 8 properties, you probably would like to know something about the income of potential tenants and capacity to pay rent in a timely manner for an area you’re interested in.
You can’t go door-to-door asking people what they make and then coming up with an average without getting punched in the nose. How do you get good data? Would it help to know the percentage of kids in the local school district who receive free or reduced price lunches? Sure, it would.
Zillow.com is an excellent resource that lets you do just that. Enter the address of the property, click on the local info tab and drill down until you see a handy pie chart that tells you the exact percentage. You probably don’t want to base your entire decision on this metric alone but it’s an excellent tool to have during the income property evaluation process.
Thanks, David!
