Student Pilot and Newbie from Columbus, MS

[Ben Volk]

Hello from paradise! 

I've recently escaped from an engineering school in Florida to the warm embrace of the real south to pursue a career in "not crashing million dollar government owned aircraft." Recently, a good friend introduced me to the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series and long story short, I inhaled it. I was already considering real estate investing on a small scale, similar to what a lot of Air Force type characters do, by living in a house and renting the remaining rooms. 

However, my strategy shifted significantly after being exposed to both the Rich Dad series and this website. I absolutely love free education and have not surprisingly spent about 60 hours in the last two weeks on this site and other investing sites in an attempt to get a grip on this challenging game as quickly as possible. 

As of right now, my previously mentioned friend and I have entered into a blood pact / partnership / cosa nostra type agreement that we will combine our meager government sponsored resources and intelligence into a REI venture. This will, of course, be in writing when it counts. We are actively seeking any way to gain knowledge, contacts, and mentors (this is not a request, just a statement) but we are marginally intelligent and understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Our long term goals are to be financially independent by our late forties / early fifties. As far as the road to get there, that's still under construction.

We'd love to connect with anyone in the area, even if just to talk, since our social circle is limited mostly to the base at this point. That being said, a huge thank you to everyone that contributes to this awesome resource!

[Jacob Elbe]

@Ben Volk 

Welcome to BP!  

I spent four years at Columbus AFB and bought my first property there!  I still have it as a rental actually.  I'm also still active duty AF, so I know the difficulties of getting into RE Investing between deployments, PCSs, training, etc!  I commend you for taking the first step though!

I'm going to assume you haven't started UPT yet because I don't know anybody that had enough time to do 60 hrs of studying on the side once they started!  If not, you are tremendously gifted!

While I still own a house there, I don't recommend investing in Columbus.  You can find profitable deals there, but not often and I haven't found a solid property management company in the area.  So I would recommend investing out of state, where you know the market is strong and you can find better deals.  No matter where you buy, it will become an out of state investment within a few years when you PCS anyways!  The only benefit to buying locally is that you can use owner occupant financing to decrease your down payment and get a slightly better interest rate.  But that's a choice you'll have to make.

My other recommendation is to start saving now!  I didn't start saving until I was leaving Columbus and it took me an extra year or two to save up enough for a down payment on a rental property because of it.  So save up now because no matter what method you choose to participate in RE investing, money will make it easier!

I'm no millionaire (yet!), and I only have a handful of properties (so far!), but I went through the same process you're going through now, just a few years ago and I love seeing other military guys making moves.  So I'd be happy to talk to you and your future RE partner about how I got started and my recommendations.  Hopefully you can learn something useful from it!  Shoot me a private message and we'll take it from there.

Jacob