Why we invest street by street, not city by city

Most overseas investors first encounter a US city as a single number: an average price, an average rent, an average yield. It is a useful starting point and a dangerous place to stop.

Buffalo illustrates this well. The typical home value in ZIP 14211 on the East Side and ZIP 14202 downtown differ by a factor of five. Estimated price growth since 2009 differs by nearly two to one. Gross rental yield differs by a factor of three.

None of those figures is right or wrong. They describe different assets, different tenants and different risks. What matters is knowing which one you are buying, and why.

What granular analysis actually involves

We look at the block, not the ZIP. Who owns the neighbouring properties, what condition they are in, what has sold in the last eighteen months, what the rent roll looks like on comparable units, and whether the street is improving or drifting.

That is not something you can do from a spreadsheet in another country. It is why we are based here.