New REI In Salt Lake City

[L'aura Bradford]

Hi all!  My name's L'aura and I'm a newbie located in SLC, UT.

A little about myself - I happened into my first rental property when my wife and I bought a house together 10 years ago and we kept my previous house as a rental.  I read all the things not to do as a landlord and preceded to do everyone of of them, so I now work with a management agency.

This past summer my wife and I decided we wanted more than a pay check and about the same time I realized I'd qualify for my company's early retirement program in the summer of 2017.  I'd only be 47 with medical benefits for the rest of our lives and time for a new career.

So my immediate real estate goal is in the next two years to replace my current income.  My long term goal is to be filthy rich and travel the world making coffee table photo books that nobody buys.  ;-)

Our plan, at the moment, is to acquire four more rental properties this year (a mix of cash flow and equity - we have one under contract and are making an offer on a second right now) and become active wholesalers.  From listening to the BiggerPockets podcasts, it sounds like everyone starts out wholesaling as a "get rich quick" scheme.  I wouldn't mind if I got rich quick, but what I'm planning is that wholesaling will give us a fairly safe way to get started taking action, build relationships, get to know our area, learn the market, give something back to the people we learn from in the form of wholesale and bird dog deals, and decide what direction we want to go from here.  It's like learning to play craps - it's never as fun learning while sitting on the side - you gotta get in the game!

Currently our focus is single family homes, but that's mostly because it's what we're already familiar with.  I'd like to investigate manufacture homes and multifamily.

For about a month and a half I've been mailing to notice of default lists and so far haven't made a deal, and I'll admit it's a little frustrating (obviously, this isn't a very good get rich quick scheme), but it's giving us a lot of exposure to a lot of things. We've had quite a few calls and I'm finally past being nervous when the phone rings and we've got a pretty good script now, but are still learning the ropes in talking to folks. None of the calls have been easy deals - most fit into the short sale arena. We've met a couple mentors from our REIA and will likely take the next calls to them for guidance and split profits.

And that about sums it up.

Thanks to everyone on BiggerPockets - you've already been a huge resource and I feel comfortable with all the information here to help us we'll have wholesale deals this year!

L'aura Bradford in SLC