New in St. Louis

[Bob Hines]

Hello All. My name is Bob Hines and I'm in St. Louis. My main interest in Real Estate is to own rental properties for the long term with the possibility of doing a rehab/flip every now and then. I did a flip back in 2005 when a deal fell into my lap but never continued on as I wanted to wait for prices to come back down to focus on long term rentals. I'm looking at having the rental income pay down the loans/build reserves now and a retirement income stream in the long term. I've put several offers on some foreclosures recently but haven't heard back from the banks so I'm still looking for #1. My 'ideal' plan for right now would be to buy 2-5 two or four families before the banks stop loaning money then pay down the HELOC for the next couple of years and be in a good position to hit the ground running when the banks start loaning money again and the mortgage on our personal residence is paid off. The stuff is hitting the fan faster than I thought so we will see what happens.

In my day job I am a Financial Planner at an Investment Management company. I am a candidate for CFP (r) certification which means I have passed the Certified Financial Planner (r) exam but I am short in my 3 years of experience requirement. I am 31, married with 3 girls-4,2,1. We purchased our home in 2002. We have done extensive rehab on our own house by ourselves-including electric and plumbing as it was built in '94-1894!. I enjoy doing the rehab as it gets me the chance to work with my hands instead of typing spreadsheets and I want to leverage those skills into the rental business.

I am being told by my parents and my in-laws that I am crazy to be thinking about doing this, especially with 3 young children but I think it would be crazy not to. My wife and I are both 31, if we take out 30 year mortgages they will all be paid off by our tenants by our retirement time-whether that time is in our 60s or earlier because of RE.