Houston Area Newbie

[Travis Strow]

Hi, My name is Travis. I am a new investor, who lives in Katy, TX (just west of Houston). I have been mostly lurking for about a year now, and thought since I've officially now jumped into real estate investing, that I would go ahead and introduce myself.

Before I do that, I have one thing I should get off my chest first. The various articles and posts here that I've come across over the years have been invaluable. My hats off to many of you out there that have unknowingly helped me. I've learned tons, and hope to continue to learn more. So, just wanted to say thank you in general to so many of you out there.

More about me: I am 33, male, married, 2 young kids (3 and 1) who keep my very busy.

I should also mention I went to the best university (For the uninformed: I am of course referring to none other than Texas A&M).

I've been looking into investing in real estate for the past year or so. I decided that I like passive income, and found SFH rentals as the way I wanted to get started.

And, I finally got off the sidelines about 3 months ago, and went out and got pre-approved for HML and a refinance. Then I sought mostly after wholesalers to find a deal. The market must of really tightened up lately, and it took e a while to find one where the numbers/deal made sense to me, but I finally bought a SFH in the SW Houston area I liked at the end of October, going through the hard money / refinance route. I'm very excited about it.

I figure I will have about a year of waiting until I have reserves built back up to buy another one. I should be able to buy 1 SFH a year starting out, until hopefully my increased income allows me to buy at a faster rate, where it will all then hopefully snowball / escalate from there. I am planning to reinvest profits as I get started, then ease out of that over time once I reach a comfortable level of income coming in.

A year is a long time between homes, so I am looking into potentially wholesaling as a way to learn more about the real estate investment side of things, and make more money for more houses as well at a faster rate if I can. If I get good at it, I figure I can also potentially find my own deals when I'm ready, which would be nice as well. I don't mind putting the work into it all, but I have only just cracked the surface of that and have much to learn.