Newbie Looking to Invest In NE Washington, DC

[Bobby Akines]

Hello BP! I've been reading articles here for a few months now (which have been an immense help), and I've decided to finally put my hat in the ring!

My wife and I live in an up-and-coming neighborhood in NE DC, and while we are renting a small 1BD in a new multi-family development, we started out planning to build some savings to buy a new home in the next year or so.

As we've been saving for our new home, we begun talking about the idea of using that nest egg to invest in a property in our neighborhood and delaying the purchase of our own home. We love the idea of being able to make in investment that will grow our financial stability and also make our neighborhood a better place to live. Also, I'm a project manager for a developer in DC, so I already have some understanding of the state of the market for large projects and a passion for real estate, but still have so much to learn about the market for 2-4 unit deals.

We have been batting around the relative merits of flips, income properties, or wholesaling. After looking reading a few things on BP, it looks like my starting strategy will be wholesaling: it's a great way to get started with little risk while learning the market and building up some equity and then moving on to purchasing a row house close by that we could convert into 3 or 4 units. We would occupy one and rent out the others.

I really hope to use this post a launch point to connect with some experienced investors and developers in the area. I'll follow up to update on how my process comes along! Look forward to meeting the community!

[Robert Williams]

Hi Bobby,

Welcome to BP. The DC market is great for all of the real estate investing avenues you mentioned; wholesaling, flipping, and renting. My wife and I have numerous rental properties in DC that we've acquired over the years and we wrapped up our first true flip late last year.

You can make good money with any of those methods. As you know, rents in DC are pretty high so finding an income producing property is not that difficult. It's more challenging to find good flip deals since competition from developers is really high. Obviously, wholesaling is the best way to go if you don't want to put up a lot of cash, but there the challenge is creating a marketing systems to get the properties.

If you get into wholesaling, please put me on your buyer's list. I'm always looking for the next deal!

Sincerely,

Rob