New Member from Ponca City, Oklahoma

[James Matthews]

Hello, I am JB Matthews from Ponca City, Oklahoma. It is a smallish town located 45 minutes north of Stillwater, or about half way between Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kansas. I work as a mechanical engineer for an oil refinery here in town where I was offered my first job out of college. I have a wife and two young kids now, but moved here single 5 years ago.

I have been interested in real estate since high school but believed it was only something I could get involved in after I had saved significant amounts of money for a down payment. I bought a 3 bed, 2 bath brick 1580 sq ft home 3 months after moving here in 2009 with 3.5% down on an FHA loan. Looking back it wasn't the best purchase I could have made, but it does work as a place to live for the time being. In 2013 my wife and I had paid off her student loans and decided we wanted to help her parents out through a rough time and bought an 1100 sq ft 2 bed 1 bath home that needed very little to make it livable. It had refinished hardwood floors, new paint, all appliances other than fridge, new lighting fixtures, and only needed to carpet removed from the living room to make it completely move in ready. Since then we have rebuilt the privacy fence with materials already on the property, it was just in disrepair. In the future we could rent it out for $450/mo easily, or possibly up to $500-$550. We only charge them PITI and they handle all minor repairs with a little labor from me. The purchase price was $29.5K with an all in cost of $32K, we should have this paid off by October. This should allow us to more easily qualify for a bigger house for us. It is currently valued at $42K

My goal in real estate is to eventually have enough income to support our spending month to month. I don't plan to retire at that time as I don't want to give up my corporate job until around age 55, I'm 28 now. I should have more than enough time to make that goal a reality.

It may be a few more years before we actually purchase another investment property, but if the right one comes up I'll jump on it. I know about 5 other investors in the area and have talked to them a little about my goals and desire to do more real estate deals. This is probably too much information for an introduction, but thought I would at least give our current situation with housing. Please feel free to contact me if you so desire.