Getting Ready to Buy My First Property

[Harrison Harner]

I've been renting for my first 5 years out of college and investing in my landlords' futures. I'm an engineer in the commercial construction industry moving from Boston to CT in 6 weeks and want to start investing. 

My current plan is to invest in my personal residence by buying a rehab, living in it during construction for about 2 years, with a large amount of the work done myself, then selling and repeating. I plan to go with traditional financing and an agent for the sake of simplicity on my first purchase. I am looking for a deal that is 70% of ARV minus rehab costs and I know that calculating ARV and rehab costs accurately are very important.

Although I feel like I don't even know enough to ask the right questions yet, I want to start asking questions early and avoid learning things the hard way. Are there other investment options/strategies I should consider? What are points of failure that I might overlook?

[Elizabeth Colegrove]

It honestly depends on the houses condition. We bought a foreclosure with a VA loan (one of the tightest on condition). The house was in livable but cosmetically ugly condition (no light fixtures, closets, kitchen cabinets destroyed with paint, etc). We personally fix the houses up and than use them as buy and hold rentals. We may eventually do flip but having another tenant pay down you mortgage is amazing.