Newbie from San Jose, CA

[Elijah LeClair]

Hello everyone! My name is Elijah LeClair. I am 26 years old with a wife and 7 month old son. I am new to the world of real estate. I have been reading for the past couple months and am trying to learn the lingo. I have also started saving money for an initial investment. This has been an exciting process so far because this sounds like a feasible lifestyle for me. I started getting interested in real estate for the purpose of retirement but I can easily see how it can become my day job as well. I started with Real Estate In Your Twenties by Brandon Turner and he quickly directed me here via his posts. I have financial goals that will enable me to have a freedom of being my own boss and spending time with my family or even creating a family business. I was a teacher but am in the midst of changing my career. This is an exciting part of life, and I look forward to what could come next! I am in the midst of a lot of reading but one thing I am having a hard time grasping is the idea of 'the market'. I understand each city has a market but what I don't know is how to read it or what things to look for. Can anyone suggest a book? Or maybe this should be a different forum? Thanks! Elijah

[Brandon Turner]

Hey @Elijah LeClair welcome to BiggerPockets - and thanks for the shout out! :) I think you'll love BiggerPockets here. Definitely check out the BiggerPockets Podcast for some awesome advice from some super smart folks. And if you haven't yet- be sure to check out How to Start Investing In Real Estate at a Young Age!

Glad to have you here Elijah! Keep in touch!

[Paul Timmins]

@Elijah LeClair

Welcome, beautiful family, check out the free Bigger Pockets Real Estate Guide http://www.biggerpockets.com/real-estate-investing

Locate and attend 3 different local REIA club meetings great place to meet people gather resources and info.

A quick way to look at your financial goal is to divide your monthly by 100 the answer is how many units you need. 6,000mo / 100 = 60 units.

Good luck

Paul

Finding out about Your Own Backyard

How to explore your own backyard. I live south of Boston for me to pick this area would be unfair. I will choose a state that is NOT an emerging market, Missouri in particular Columbia. I have never been to Missouri and know nothing about it except what I have seen on the tv show “Cops”.

Lets look at ten ways to penetrate and explore the market. This will work in any area of the country.

1.Government Resources-Federal sites, Bureau of Labor statistics might give me a good overview. www.BLS.gov I can go to the state BLS page and gather info.
Google “Missouri Job Growth” I find a report from the Missouri Department of Economic Development the report notes 3,200 jobs created in Columbia in September 2008. This is encouraging. It is also a good source for specific information.

2.Newspapers-Columbia Tribune http://www.columbiatribune.com/ This will be a source of local articles, I will search with Job Growth, Economic Development and Housing. For a view from the local business community
I search for the local Business Journal www.bizjournals.com St. Louis Business Journal comes up when I select the local area. Once in their website I can search for job creation and development articles see trends and transportation improvements.

3.City Services-From the Columbia, Missouri government site www.gocolumbiamo.com I find the police where I can locate the community policing resources, crime watch groups and outreach activities. Having several conversations will prove valuable.
From an on-line Blog about local crime I see frequent reference to crime in the north of the city seems like a war zone. I know where to avoid in the city.
The city highway department will be a good source for coming infrastructure improvements.

4.Economic Development-I will look at the State, County and City sites. I found an excellent regional economic development site. http://www.columbiaredi.com/ This group offers a business resource guide which lists the local realtor board Columbia Board of Realtors, angel investor network and chamber. The Realtor Board has a session coming next month investing in smaller multi-families, great material and chance to network.

5.Zillow, Loopnet-Let take a look on these popular sites and see what properties are going for. I notice reviewing the properties that college housing options for properties are listed. This is a very strong market as Leslie Hand found out. I begin to notice pricing by area, this will be good establishing what a good deal. I noticed on Loopnet that there were some premium listings. Several listings had the same broker listed, I clicked on their site and was able to access all their commercial listings.

6.Local Links Chamber of Commerce, Business Networking International (BNI)
Columbia Chamber of Commerce http://www.columbiamochamber.com/ Mid-Missouri Bus Network-Columbia http://www.bnistl.com/chapterdetails.php?ID=64In this BNI chapter I find a realtor, title company, broker, property management firm and other business/trade contacts. This looks like a good group.

7.Building my local Team. I begin looking for Mortgage brokers, real estate brokers to add to the team. I visit www.to find local property management firms with CPM, ARM designations. I continue and identify RE attorney, appraiser, inspector as team members.

8.Special Housing Populations I observed reference to colleges Stephens College http://www.stephens.edu/ as well as the University of Missouri http://www.missouri.edu/ Columbia College of Missouri http://www.ccis.edu/ Colleges are great sub markets where the profit can be 2-3 times what it would be normally. Renting per bedroom or per semester are two ways to boost profits. I noticed a medical school and Veterinarian School. Those in the medical profession could also be a special population

9.Local REIA clubs, Landlord associations. I go to Google search for these separately. I will also check Yahoo Groups-Real Estate Investing to locate other real estate related groups. Meeting and connecting in person and on line opens up many doors and resources.

10.Special Housing Programs-Google Housing programs I find out the assistance programs for tenants and landlords. I learn there is a TIF Tax Increment Financing area. This is often a blighted area that the local government offers incentives to increase housing, create jobs and improve the area.

This is just a short list to help you gather information, evaluate an area and establish further networking opportunities. Follow this list for your local area, you will develop hundreds of contacts, and unlimited supply of resources and cut down the time to identify your area.

[Vincent Hicks]

Welcome to the BP, your in the right place, I've been here for only a couple of months, made some key connections with good people, I'm sure you will too,

[Sarah Lam]

Hi Elijah! Welcome to BP! :) I'm from Santa Clara, currently living in the city! Nice to see another Bay Area newbie on here. The market refers to pretty much all available properties for sale. You can analyze it by type of property, geographic location, etc. There's a whole bunch of things to look for, depending on your REI strategy, and I'm still learning about all of them myself! Some big ones that come to mind are job growth, population growth, etc.

Poke around BP and read as much as you can! Good luck :)

[Anthony Santa Ana]

Welcome Elijah! I'm from San Jose and a teacher as well. Hopefully, we connect and share some ideas.

[David Beard]

Helluva post, @Paul Timmins . You should copy it over to the Member Blogs area.

Welcome, @Elijah LeClair , best of luck building your RE business.

[Robert Adams]

Welcome to BP Nation!

[John Thies]

I lived in Columbia, MO for 7 years while I attended school it is a very fast growing community that just shortly ago reached over 100k population. Great place.

[Andy Kaufman]

Welcome @Elijah LeClair !

I live in Marin and do business primarily in the East Bay. We sold a lot of REOs during the downturn and now I'm focused on investing. Mainly wholesaling.

Feel free to send a colleague request and I'll do what I can to help out.

[Elijah LeClair]

Thanks everyone for your replies! I now have some things to focus on and grow. :) This is a great community with a ton of information! Again thanks!
Elijah LeClair