Leveling Up between acquisitions

[Christopher Abele]

Brief History: Midwest resident and novice investor here. 

Our first investment property is a small, 2 bedroom house purchased (cash) off-market in the winter of 2021. I did most of the rehab work myself which meant 4 months of the W2 and and extra 30+ hours per week on the rehab. Then there was the learning curve and trepidation over getting it occupied, deciding whether we want to refi, etc. (We did refi and are locked in at 3.3% for the next 30 years.)

6 months later we bought our next property, another off-market fixer-upper. There were big reasons why this new place worked better for my family and I. This one took me 6 months to get to the point we could move in. Our existing home is being rehabbed to rent and should hit the market in the next couple of days.

Looking at our finances, including a need for a complete hvac system for our "new" home, we're at minimum a year out from buying again. I'm not going to refi out of any of our 3 properties as we're at 2.25%, 3.12% & 3.3% respectively. 

When I'm not swimming against the stream I feel like I'm drowning. It seems that most podcasts and books encourage action but the real learning happens with hands on experience. I listen to a decent amount of podcasts and read a decent amount of audiobooks already. 

What are steps that you've personally taken when moving from the "famine" cycle of REI and back into the feast stage to keep the momentum going?