New member from Virginia Beach, VA

[Erin L.]

Just joined last week, what a great site! Duplex owner for 10 years, honestly came into it not really looking to be an "investor" but just as a way to get a foot in the door of homeownership cheaply. My spouse is active duty military and we have been stationed here and lived in the duplex the whole time which enabled us to afford to remodel the units. Result was rents increasing as well as being able to make improvements in order for us to be happy in it ourselves for this long. My husband has prior construction/DIY experience before the military and I'm the "numbers and people" girl so it has worked well with me managing the property and him doing repairs and improvements which saved a ton of money. We have had 2 "bad" tenants so I have some lessons learned the hard way under my belt as well. We have outgrown the property now as we have 2 kids and we are moving to the Southern MD area this summer and when faced with the prospect of selling the duplex or renting, well… renting won. We have now decided that Buy/Hold small MF properties may just be the answer we were looking for to supplement eventual military retirement income. Learning all we can now about doing things "the right way". Luckily it looks like our numbers will be ok for cash flow - went about things a little backwards but we are here, nonetheless! I have already learned so much from the few podcasts and forum posts I have seen, great community at BP!