Stepping-Into Real Estate Investing

[Kimberly Sutor]

Hey, y’all! 👋🏼 I’m Kimberly. My husband & I live between 2 homes: a family farm outside Galesburg IL (45 mins south of the QC), and a historic home (c. 1841) in Burlington IA…right on the Mississippi River (5 mins away from my husband’s office). 

I am stepping-into RE investing because I’ve been very spoiled having my husband work from home for most of the last 2 years…so I’m going to build our portfolio and get him retired in the next 5 years! 😉 (Then he can work for me. 🤣 AND we can be more free to visit our grandbabies, and just travel…finding new places we may want to invest in.)

I'm looking at starting with 1) Making our IA home into an AirBnB property, since we don't live there full-time, and our downtown/river location is prime! 2) I'm initially interested in purchasing STR's in St Louis MO and/or Chicago IL. I lived in the CHi Burbs for over 15 years, and we LOVE to weekend in The City. I WILL own a lake-front property one of these days! 3) We are also thinking of purchasing multi-family properties where a few of our grown kids live (the QC, Portland OR, and Atlanta GA areas), so they can live in one unit under a rent-to-take-over-ownership kind of agreement….hopefully encouraging them to begin investing in RE earlier than we did.

I've just started reading How To Invest In Real Estate, and am listening to the BP Podcast. But I'm a firm believer in jumping-in while I'm learning….as long as I have a good team in my corner. (No Analysis Paralysis happening here! 🤣) I already have a LLC established, I'm working on getting pre-approved financing in place, I am looking for an attorney, we meet with our accountant next week , and I'm working remotely with a realtor in STL and have my eye on a couple SFHs that could be a good STR. My goal is to have a contract in STL in the next few weeks! (Do I sound crazy? Is that too fast? 🤣)

Fun fact about me? I moved 23 times in just over 20 years. I’ve now lived in our IL home for 12 years….which still seems unbelievable to me. If I could convince my husband, I’d build a tiny house and just travel in it all the time. (Another fun fact: I was a flight attendant AND a big truck driver. Travel is just in my blood, I guess. ☺️)

I’m super-stoked to start this new endeavor….and am so glad I came across Bigger Pockets! I look forward to learning from all y’all….and contributing where I can. 

✌🏼💕🏡

-Kimberly

[Zeona McIntyre]

Hey @Kimberly Sutor, I think my case study is Chapter 17 in that book, which talks about the Airbnb strategy ;). I have been in the St Louis market since 2015 and find that it is well suited for Medium-Term or month-to-month rentals as there are so many traveling nurses contracted at the many hospitals. When I had managed airbnbs in Atlanta (in two different parts), I always had trouble with poor quality guests that caused problems and were rough on the homes, something I don't experience in St Louis, so I would caution you with that one. I have an excellent agent in St Louis if you want another contact. 

There are wonderful opportunities for Lakefront homes in the Poconos that do well on airbnb.