Greetings from Central Florida!

[Aaron Carnahan]

Good Morning Everyone,

I have been a member here on BP for some time now reading posts, but have never posted anything until now. I like most people are here looking for advice and incite on others experiences regarding real estate investing. I am sure my situation isn't all that unique to me, but I am debating whether right now is a good time to start investing or if I should wait until I finish my BSEE degree fall of 2020. I have been interested in real estate investing since 2003 as my first job involved working for one. I believe if I wait, I am pushing retirement further to the right. I believe I live in a great area to currently invest in Brevard County, however I am unsure of my buying power while I am in school.

Without further ado my current situation, as noted above I am 31 years old and currently going to school full time, however I spent over 9 years in the Marines so my college is paid for and I am receiving a housing stipend, this money is however not considered useable income for a mortgage. My wife works full time and combined with my VA compensation our gross is nearly $3900. We have 800+ credit scores and a decent amount of liquid savings, a little over $57,000 and roughy $80,000 in retirement accounts (401k's, etc), we own both our vehicles outright and our only debt currently is our primary home which presently has a LTV of 80.4%. We purchased our home back in September 2016 utilizing a VA home loan and our DTI is currently 29.4%.

I feel comfortable where we are right now and feel like our money is being wasted sitting in the bank when it could be working for us at this time. So after quite a bit of reading I am now left wondering how I would fair with a local bank given my available assets and current income situation. Asking myself if it is at all possible to purchase a SFH around here for 100k while putting down 20-25% or if I should wait until I go back to work full time. I am hesitant to submit applications if they are going to ding my credit only to find out we wont' qualify off our income/assets. Any thoughts are appreciated thanks for taking the time to read my post.

Cheers,

Aaron