New Member/Investor St. Louis, Mo

[Ryan Dossey]

Hello my name is Ryan and I hope that you are all doing well. I am brand new to the real estate game and looking to dive in. I am young and hoping that will be to my advantage. I have been reading around this site as well as several blogs written by one of the other contributors here. I've read Rich Dad Poor Dad and a mentor/investor suggested Nothing Down for the 2000's.

I'm in kind of a strange middle ground. Being young I work full time and am married. We don't have a ton of money. I do have decent credit. However to our advantage we have no credit card debt, student loans, or car loans. My wife actually graduates undergraduate school this next week debt free!

I'm trying to learn as much as possible but I also want to get going as son as possible. I think analysis paralysis is what I want to avoid.

I'm open to any suggestions, tips, or recommendations.

[Bob Hines]

Welcome Ryan! The St. Louis region offers lots of areas of low and moderately priced real estate so you can start investing without needing lots of cash. North County Section 8 rentals and City are two of the biggest draws for long term buy and hold I am aware of. I stick to South City.

Since you're starting fresh, take a look at a Zip Code map and start finding areas that you are familiar with or think you would like to start working in. Then head to Realtor.com and start looking up housing prices to see if the price ranges will work for you. If your preferred areas don't work for what you can afford, start looking at nearby areas or just start picking areas. After finding the prices, start looking for rental amounts on Craigslist, Zillow or any of the other websites that have that information. Once you compare the rental rates to purchase costs, you may need to check other areas. When you do find a handful of Zip Codes to focus on, go drive them. Things can change block by block, especially in the city. Look for the major intersections or streets where things change so you can narrow your search criteria some more (West of Grand, South of 44, Dogtown neighborhood etc). At that point, if you could purchase a property (cash or financed), find an agent and start looking at properties. If you don't have enough to purchase a property, contact an agent and have them set you up to receive emails from the MLS of all properties that meet your requirements. I get automated daily emails of SFRs and Multis that meet my buying criteria. Look through all the listings, get familiar with prices. Go and look at properties, even if you just drive by and look in windows. With the email, you can mark Favorites and watch them. You can see how fast they go off the market and if you keep them on your Favorites once they are under contract, you can see how long it took to close and what it sold for. The goal is to have such a knowledge of the market that you know what is a good deal and know when to swoop in when one pops up.

Good Luck!