New Member from California - San Francisco bay area

[Drew Sukovich]

Hi all,

My name is Drew Sukovich and I live in the San Francisco Bay area.  New member here with little to no experience in real estate investing other than purchasing my own home about 20 years ago and going through the great intro course on BiggerPockets.  That is what landed me here - did a search for intro courses on real estate and found this wonderful site.  I'm looking to start investing later this year as part of my move into retirement in about 10 years.   Been living/working in the bay area for over 20 years.  My house is almost paid off, kids are done with college and I'm now interested in starting a new phase in my life as I get closer to retirement.   Current plan is to learn as much as I can over the next couple of months, make some new friends and potential colleagues here on the BiggerPockets and start my real estate investing career later this year.  I'm already sure that I'm be a buy and hold investor focused on cash flow.  The real question is now what niche and location. 

Cheers,

Drew

[Ryan Landis]

@Drew Sukovich welcome! If you have not already included listening to all of your podcasts in your "intro" course, I would highly recommend doing so.

In terms of what actionable steps I think you might try to do over the next couple of months, start getting a feel for what you feel most comfortable with. Does property management sound interesting to you? If not, then try and schedule some meetings with some PM's and pick their brains.

I would also highly recommend that you speak to a lender earlier on in the game. You do not need them to go through the whole process with you (i.e. pre-approval yet) but just get familiar with what they are going to expect/ask of you so that you can get financing (at least the conventional way).

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out ask as the Bay Area BPer's are pretty active.