Finally Introducing Myself! - Hello from Provo, Utah for now... moving to Seattle in 6 Months

[Rusty Pollard]

Hi there, BP friends! My name is Rusty Pollard and I am a 28 year-old from Colorado Springs. I'm going to school in Provo and will be moving up to the Seattle area (Everett) in about six months upon graduation. Real estate is a hobby of sorts for me, and I love learning more through reading, my classes in college, and the BP podcast/articles--of course. One of my real estate classes counted for two-thirds of the education requirement for my license, so I went ahead and got that this summer. I have it hung with a referral agency/brokerage while I figure out what I am going to do with it now (I should have planned that out a little better).

I am majoring in Facility and Property Management with a minor in Business, so it actually has worked out quite well to get into real estate investing on the side and build on my education. I actually worked and pursued other things instead of my undergraduate degree, so I'm a little older than most college students and my wife and I bought our first house last spring. It was a foreclosure, and needed some work, so we lived in the basement apartment while I fixed it up and rented out the upstairs for the first year. This year we are upstairs and renting the basement and it's still covering PITI--which has been amazing! It has been a TON of work, but well worth the experience and lessons learned, and we're about ready to make our next purchase when we head up to the Seattle area after graduation.

We're currently trying to decide what we're going to do with this house when we leave for my job in Washington... zoning laws are such that I can't rent top and bottom separate because it needs to be owner-occupied. So we may just rent it as a whole house, which would still work out alright with some cash flow. Our hope is to get into a duplex up there and I'm still working on those details. The long-term plan is to build a buy and hold empire so I can be with my family more.

Anyhow, sorry for the book! I'm finally making the step to get involved here and I look forward to interacting with the BP community for years to come. Talk to you soon!

- Rusty