New Member from Tampa Florida

[Austin Davis]

My name is Austin and I've a recent graduate from USF with Master in Public Administration and a concentration in Urban Planning. I'm pursuing a career in local government/ urban planning.

I've been toying around with the idea of real estate development for some time now, but I've finally decided to pull the trigger and really get serious about this after talking to different people. I'm interested in mostly property rentals, but would like to try  my hand a flipping, and eventually commercial development (4-22 units or mixed-used retail). I'm interested in real estate for three reasons. First I love the idea of passive income/financial freedom. Secondly, real estate (as I'll discuss in a second) seems like a good way for me to try my hand at being an entrepeneur. Third, given my background in urban planning and community development, I view real estate as another avenue of making communities a better place to live. I'm viewing this as city/community/neighborhood building by literally building the things I want to see in my city and neighborhood. This sentiment is actually coming from an emerging group of community-based nonprofits, architects, city planners, and community developers, who see the value of using real estate to development to better their communities by literally shaping and rebuilding them. In this fashion, I think that my background and training in urban planning and community development might give me an interesting view on real estate investing.

My immediate goals for real estate investment is to acquire a rental property by the end of 2015/ early 2016. I would then like to try and acquire another rental property soon after with the goal being getting two to three rental properties by the beginning of 2017. I'm looking for duplexes, triplexes, and quads and trying to focus my efforts in the Tampa Heights and Seminole Heights areas of Tampa.  As discussed earlier, my longer term goals are to possibly do house  flipping, rehabbing and renting  commercial properties/ retail , and possibly green field development. Ultimately I want to be a good member for the communities I invest in ; the way I see it the more I invest into my community the more it helps my bottom line. Help the neighborhood become a more happening place, raise property values and raise rents. I have a lot more detailed plan, PM me if you want to hear it more in detail, but I'll stop droning on about it for now!

Look forward to being apart of this great community.