Hey BP, looking for some direction

[Steven N.]

Plans:

Immediate - nothing but learn and ask questions, receive advice.

Summer 2015: Begin purchasing real estate.

Alright so I have been lurking on the forums trying to find direction for my wife and I for next summer. Right now we live in Norway. She is Norwegian, I am American. We will more than likely be moving to Bend, Oregon. I have a small business background, she has retail management background.

I would like us to get into real estate with the goal of creating cash flow every month. Setup a real estate business team and as long term goal reach critical mass. We have discussed it for a few months and are in agreement. Prior to finding BP I was certain in the fact that we have such a high amount of capital, that we could setup a good team and portfolio of rentals to provide us with cash flow.

My grand plan prior to discovering BP was to buy 4 or possibly 5 new construction homes 3/2 or 3/3 in Bend for around 200,000 all cash and rent them for the average rate. I have a friend there who has just bought his 3/2.5 brand new house for 205k. Looking at some comps the rent would be around 1300 or more.... And that concludes my plans. Not too well thought out right? No thoughts of exit strategy or growth.

But now after reading these forums,  hopefully I am using this phrase correctly, I think I might be "leaving money on the table"? Potentially bottlenecking profitability ?

Anyway, the wife and I are in our late twenties. To setup our real estate business we will have around 700-900k USD capital, with around 1.2m in the bank.

So, with near 10 months to prepare ourselves, I was hoping to get some advice on how you all would approach this situation. Such as, would you seek financing even though the capital is sitting there in the bank? Why/why not?

Musts: Wife is pretty set on buying locally in central Oregon at least in the beginning, meaning within 2 hours drive.

its about 4am here, I am just going to post and pick up on this later.

Looking forward to your replies!