Thoughts & Input on Getting my Feet Wet

[Brian Kim]

Hi there! I'm looking to hop out of the corporate rat race after having been laid off twice in the last year. I am currently in California and am looking to get into real estate investing and would love your thoughts and advice.

Some background:
I am in my late twenties and have no real estate background. I have been reading, listening to podcasts, and have chatted with a few individuals already in the game.

Capital:
Option 1: Work alone and start with $50-100k in capital
Option 2: Work with two partners (already an option) and start with $200-250k in capital

Initial Strategy:
Option 1: Look within california for a deal and flip the first couple of homes to build more capital
Option 2: Look outside of california and start small

Both options will be targeting SFH or Condos/Townhomes.


Some questions I have:

1. What's the best way to get funding to get started? (Given I currently don't have an employer I'm assuming this will affect my ability to get traditional funding)
2. Thoughts on staying within california as my initial market or looking outside of california given properties are more affordable
3. Is the best way to network just going to Meetups or finding investors through bigger pockets?
4. Any other thoughts and advice are welcome!

Looking forward to hearing and connecting with you all. Thanks!

[Darius Ogloza]

In the end we all speak from personal experience. We have invested over the past 25 years in 6 states and no set of investments have returned anything close to our California investments in terms of total return (appreciation, cash and tax benefits). Although with many markets tightening the environment has changed somewhat and seems to continue to change as I write, the last three years have provided extraordinary returns on quality flips in the Bay Area (I have no reason to think it has been much different in San Diego). It appears that partnering would allow you to have sufficient capital to get started locally. If neither you nor either of your prospective partners qualifies for traditional financing, I would look to DSCR and hard money lenders to provide you with additional financing. That said, navigating partnerships can get very tricky - make sure you have a tight agreement from the start addressing respective financial contributions, role descriptions, and terms for dissolution of the partnership and buyout of individual partners. I am sure you can find decent form partnership agreements online or through a bookstore. Just my two cents.