New investor in Duluth, MN

[Ryan R.]

Hi All,

My name is Ryan and I am originally from Duluth, MN, where I plan to begin investing in the near future. I currently reside in Southern California and work in law enforcement. 

I have no background in real estate other than owning a condo, once. I came to join BiggerPockets after an internet search for websites and blogs that help new real estate investors. BiggerPockets came highly recommended, so I checked it out. Over the past few months I've been listening to podcasts, reading blog posts, and lurking on the forums. 

My goal in real estate is to slowly supplant my earnings from my full-time job so I can eventually retire from law enforcement and transition into real estate investing permanently. To that end, I am drawn to buying and holding, though flipping sounds extremely interesting.

Currently I am in the initial stages of analyzing my first property. I've been watching it for the past six months and the property does nothing but drop in asking price. Today I reached out to the listing agent and am hoping to get some real numbers that I can use for doing a proper analysis on the property. It is a multi-family property near the house I grew up in. 

Being very fresh, I'm still very nervous, but I know where I ultimately want to be, and that the hardest part of this will be property number one. To that end, wish me luck.

Thanks,

Ryan

[Andy Schornack]

The Duluth/Superior market is an interesting market as it is a mix of college rentals, multifamily, and traditional single family rentals.  We have found it an interest market to lend into versus the Twin Cities marketplace. Rents are lower, vacancies still trend positive but the affordability is better with higher expected cash flows.  The largest challenge we have seen is the age of the properties and higher expected maintenance and repairs cost so you will not want to go into this area without a capex plan.  Some valuable information in the City of Duluth's July 2016 Housing Report: http://duluthmn.gov/media/517578/2015-Housing-Indicator-Report.pdf