New from Anoka MN, possibly heading to southern Illinois area...

[Travis D.]

Hi My name is Travis, my wife's name is Jessica and I am posting from the great state of Minnesota. Just getting into RE and looking to learn a bunch on BP! So glad to be here getting to know this awesome community of RE professionals .  

Long story is me and my wife are looking to go into RE full time, leave our job/current business and get into rehabbing houses. And maybe later on get into rentals or development. Our current home we have been in for 2 years and its currently worth about $395K, we bought it low at $267k. We have $245k left on the mortgage, so there is a good chunk of tax free money to be made if we sell. We also have about $40k in cash and another $35k in a 401k account. 

The problem we have been trying to work around is MN property values have skyrocketed in the last few years. We would be hard pressed to make much happen in the area. We have family down in southern Illinois (Carterville/Marion area) and from what we have researched SFR's are selling for pretty cheap down there. We just don't know if its a good area to try and flip houses in. Our family says that the market is "hot" if you can find homes in the "desired" school district around there, but that's about all we know besides what the prices are on realtor.com and trulia etc. The family did just build a house in that area last spring so I think they may know something about the current market.

Our plan so far sounds like it would consist of: buying a home for cash to live in, somewhere in the $75k range + or -, nothing fancy just a "home base", something needing remodeling. And then try and get going on flipping SFR's worth $130k or so. My wife has a college degree but the job opportunities aren't available in southern Illinois like here in MN so it doesn't look like we would really have any income coming in, so we would have to save some of our money as backup for a year of expenses, but owning the house free and clear would keep expenses pretty low, and we wont have any car loans to pay either. Jessica would be getting her RE license right away, so there could be some potential income there but most likely it would just be for the resources available with the RE license.

Any and all advice or ideas are welcome and HI ALL!