Small Scale Investor Looking to Grow

[Devin Cordell]

Hello everyone. Relatively new investor here, looking to grow with minimized risk. Local to the Birmingham, Alabama area, specifically just north of Birmingham. Just recently found the Bigger Pockets podcast and I've been consuming a lot of it. I've only been involved in real estate (besides just a primary residence) for about a year now. I love it, and would much rather prefer doing this for a career. 

I currently own three long-term rentals, all of which are paid off. I've completed one flip.  I want to do more but I'm in a situation where I don't want to go into more debt to grow the portfolio (big mortgage on my primary residence). Just looking to get more information and learn and meet others doing what I'm doing. 

Also exploring getting a real estate license more for myself and to learn more about the industry. 

[Devin Cordell]

Quote from @Dan Guenther:

Hey @Devin Cordell - welcome to the community and congrats on your progress so far! 

My first thought when reading your post was the opportunity you have to leverage your current properties that are paid off. Have you thought of pulling from the equity you have currently to continue to grow the portfolio? With all of those properties being paid off (which is great!) are you getting the highest return on equity? 

I'd be happy to chat with you more about your investing side and also becoming an agent if you have any questions on that! Reach out anytime. 

Hearing all the BRRR references when listening to BP definitely got me thinking about it, but where I am at now, I don't feel comfortable doing it. I feel personally leveraged as much as I can tolerate (thanks to primary mortgage), and don't want to go further for the emergency situations, kind of like I find myself in now. Two of my properties are not cash flowing, one due to renovations, the other due to an eviction lawsuit. If they were all leveraged, I would find myself struggling to cover. Once I've returned them all to cash flow, I do want to leverage one of them to expand. I think when all is said and done I'm always going to carry a few paid off as insurance against the unknown.

Thank you! The agent I work with is with EXP as well and I'm looking at potentially joining under her brokerage.