What would you do?

Question

My wife and I are selling our house locally and have always wanted to live in southern California, anywhere between San Diego and Orange County. When we sell our home, we will have a year and a half of living expenses in the bank and are contemplating making the move to the San Diego area.

My training and experience is in law enforcement and Iâ€™ve studied my job options in SoCal, which look fairly promising (itâ€™s just tough to land a cop job out of state without living in the area). That being said, Iâ€™ve always been fascinated with real estate investing and real estate in general. I would prefer to work in real estate full time as compared to being a cop (good pay and benefits, but not without some big negatives).

So here is the question:

If you wanted to start a career in real estate and didnâ€™t have to make a sizeable wage for 1.5 years, what would you do and how would you do it? Iâ€™m very interested in rehabbing and general investing, but would also like to do what I can to learn about real estate transactions and real estate in general.

Ideas?

Jim

Matt T. · Answer

Good Morning James,

I too was in law enforcement before heading over seas to train others. If I were dead set on that geographical location, I'd probably take the LE job while working myself into real estate investing. One of the benefits (or drawbacks) is that you will likely be initially stuck on the evening or overnight shift as a new guy on the department. That will leave your days free to learn the market, network and focus on the are in which you will specialize. And showing the W2 income will definitely help when it comes time to get a loan. Good luck!

Jeff M. · Answer

Hey Jim,
Great to hear you're considering getting your feet wet with real estate. These are historic times to be investing! I'm a So-CA native and do most of my investing out o' state. CA is tough to make the numbers work...not impossible, but I prefer "easy".

When I got started, one strategy I used was to befriend investor-friendly realtors in places I was interested in buying. I gave them my parameters and they'd send me deals. Boots on the ground are key to out of state investing. You need a trustworthy ally on your team. Eventually, I learned enough to venture out on my own and find my own deals.

Since you're in the learning phase, join local real estate investing clubs. Check out the groups under "Networking" and try Meetup.com. Don't drop $$ on memberships, most groups will be free. If you have a couple bucks, invest it with a good mentor. They've already made the mistakes and can help keep you on the right path. The right mentor can provide huge ROI!

Keep asking questions. To your success! Jeff

JAMES Coleman · Answer

Will,

Thanks for your input. My cash reserve is "reserved" for living expenses while job hunting. Flipping sounds great and I've been deal hunting in SoCal for fun. The problem is I'm not going to have access to conventional financing and/or large amounts of cash at first.

What would be great is to find a mentor/teacher whom I could learn under and/or work for.

Will Barnard · Answer

Jim, the answer would largly depend on your current cash availability position in excess of your next years living expenses, however, since you mentioned a strong interest in rehab flipping, that, in my opinion, is the best thing to do in So CAL right now, of course that could change in a few years too so you will need to learn how to change strategies as the market changes.

What would you do?

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