Advice On Picking A Market

[Brandon Beck]

Hi All,

Excited to be starting out on my investing journey! I have been in the education phase for about the last 8 months and don't think I will be ready to purchase a property for about a year. 

My question is on picking a market. I would like to use an FHA Loan and try to house hack a property but homes in my current market (Santa Barbara, Ca) are on average about 1.5 - 2 million dollars. Even getting into one of these properties with a 3-5% loan is still going to cost a lot of capital. My question is - should I focus on an out of state market that is less expensive for me to get into?

I am a Project Manager for a Residential Design Build contractor so I know my way around construction, working with subcontractor's, and estimating projects. Should I use the skills I have to try to BRRRR a property out of state? If I were to invest out of state I could shrink my investment timeline as I already have enough capital saved up to invest in some states.

Any advice is greatly appreciated, thank you!

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Brandon Beck:

Hi All,

Excited to be starting out on my investing journey! I have been in the education phase for about the last 8 months and don't think I will be ready to purchase a property for about a year. 

My question is on picking a market. I would like to use an FHA Loan and try to house hack a property but homes in my current market (Santa Barbara, Ca) are on average about 1.5 - 2 million dollars. Even getting into one of these properties with a 3-5% loan is still going to cost a lot of capital. My question is - should I focus on an out of state market that is less expensive for me to get into?

I am a Project Manager for a Residential Design Build contractor so I know my way around construction, working with subcontractor's, and estimating projects. Should I use the skills I have to try to BRRRR a property out of state? If I were to invest out of state I could shrink my investment timeline as I already have enough capital saved up to invest in some states.

Any advice is greatly appreciated, thank you!

I would definitely recommend investing in another state. California is the most heavily regulated state, and it's not going to get better. It's almost impossible to find something that cash flows and we're in a peak market so it's a bad time to roll the appreciation dice.

Get "Long-Distance Real Estate Investing" by David Greene. It teaches you how to evaluate other markets, build a team, manage from a distance, etc.