Potential San Antonio investor from Los Angeles

[Nathaniel Sticco]

Hello!

I'm Nate. I work in Post Production in LA, but I'm interested in getting involved in real estate investing as well. I've been looking into it for a while and I think everything's finally come together for this to be the year!

Buy and Hold properties are my focus. The market I'm studying the closest right now is San Antonio. If anyone has any insight into that market or Texas in general, I'd love to hear it. I'll probably just be looking at single family residences or possibly duplexes at this point.

BiggerPockets seems like a terrific community. I'm happy to be here!

[David Faulkner]

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against REI in San Antonio, for San Antonions. I DO have something against newbies thinking that they can easily invest out of state and get those pro forma returns and cash flows that so many providers dangle in front of them ... it's just not that easy and you will likely never see those returns in reality, and by the time you realize this and try to sell, you will likely also realize that you over paid for the property because you are not familiar with the market and trusted somebody who was more interested in selling you something than getting you a good deal ... this is not what newbies want to hear and more often than not they ignore it and have to learn the hard way, but it IS reality. Ask me how I know this :)

If you really want to invest in San Antonio real estate, then my advice would be to move to San Antonio. Seriously, I'm not saying that to be mean. If you don't want to move, think long & hard about why you don't want to do that and you may start to understand why Cali is a desirable RE market, and then focus instead on opportunities in your own back yard (there are a ton of great ones). Good luck to you, whichever path you choose. I'm happy to help if you want advice on investing locally.