New York

AL BEAHN was a 22-year-old college graduate living in his parent's basement in the Detroit suburbs when he bought his first investment property in 2009. It cost him US$27,000 and he flipped it three months later for a US$16,000 profit. Today, his company, Pioneer Homes, has bought and sold 1,000 homes, primarily through a business model he calls the turnkey rental.

Mr Beahn buys and renovates a single-family home, hires a property manager and finds a tenant - then sells the whole package to an investor. He works mostly in the historical neighbourhoods west of Detroit's downtown, where the promise of high yields has helped attract investors from more than 30 countries. "There's not many markets in the world where you can buy a house for US$50,000 and get a 1,500- square-foot brick Colonial that will rent at US$850 a month," he said.