New Investor Separating From The Military

[Trey Dyer]

Hello BiggerPockets Community,

My wife and I are from Virginia but we both live and work in Italy and have been for the past 3 years. She is a grade school teacher and I am in the military. I will be separating soon, after completing 10 years of service, and we will be moving back state-side. 

There will definitely be a change of pace in our lives and we have both settled on REI as a very attractive option for us. Buy and hold using the "BRRRR" strategy is our current preferred method and cash-flow will take priority.

We will be moving to Washington State but we plan on investing in Missouri and Virginia. Virginia because we both grew up there and are very familiar with the Hampton Roads area and Missouri, specifically KC, for the rent to value ratios.

We understand that investing out of state will be an obstacle in itself and our PM(s) will be key in all of this. We still have so much to learn and we look forward to developing relationships with members of the BP community and hopefully paying it forward down the line.

Feel free to message me anytime and thank you all for the plethora of information I have already received by browsing the forums.

[Eric B.]

Hey @Trey Dyer, I am AD currently stationed overseas. I've been reading heavily on the principles of long distance investing.  In fact, just yesterday I finished David Greene's book "Long-Distance Real Estate Investing."  It answers 95% of the questions I had and actually made me feel pretty comfortable with the entire process. 

Where I have been struggling is identifying a potential market to invest in.  My biggest complaint with the book is that he does not go into how he identifies a city worthy of his investment.  I saw that there are some 18,000 metro areas spread across the US.  I just can't figure out how to whittle that number down to something manageable.  In essence, the due diligence on a city/metro area is my biggest hold up.  That being said, I'm happy to regurgitate things that I learned from Greene's book since you have a market already identified.

I wish you well post separation from the Military.  Let me know if I can help in any way.

Eric