Investor from California (Newbie)

[Account Closed]

Hello everyone!

My name is MAYRASOL ALVAREZ. I was born and raised in San Francisco, CA but currently reside in the East Bay with my husband and teen aged daughter. In 2015, I left the Corporate World after putting in nearly 25 years. I run my own travel agency from home which has been an awesome experience.

My husband, DOMINIC, was born in Chicago, IL but raised in the East Bay. He is a Martial Arts Instructor and a Physical Therapist Assistant. We are hoping he can quit his day job soon.

We are in the early stages of starting a second business, Real Estate Investment, together. 

Right now, we are focusing on wholesaling in Chicago, IL / Dallas, TX and North Florida (Tampa, Orlando, and up). However, we do have a buy and hold property in Cape Coral, FL (one lot).We are working on building through quick cash opportunities so that we can turn around and reinvest. As soon as we are able, we plan on getting into rental properties then eventually flip houses.

Some acquaintances of ours are also investors and had mentioned finding Bigger Pockets. They suggested we look into it, which we did and it has been an awesome resource so far for advice and networking. I look forward to continuing my exploration of BP and also meeting like-minded individuals who we can possibly work with but mostly learn from.

We have always been interested in real estate and are enjoying "learning while doing" in this business. It's been fun so far!

Before I end our introduction, we would like to welcome all other "newbies" like my husband, Dominic, and I. We hope to meet many of you as well as learn and grow with you.

Goodnight from CA.

- Mayrasol and Dominic

[Seth Nadreau]

Sounds like you and your family are building quite the nice portfolio!

There are lots of options for the land (including just holding it). If you bought it cash, then you can always use the value of the land as a downpayment on a construction loan if you'd want to develop the land for resale. New construction is booming again, so that's certainly one option.

As for the commercial property, when you're ready to tackle that, you should consider running the numbers on the benefits of both rental income and sales income. If its just one unit among similar units, selling may be more beneficial than a buy and hold as commercial rental rates aren't moving nearly as well upwards as residential rates. Still not a bad way to drip some income in to your pockets, but depending on your long term goals, the commercial unit may be best suited for resale to open up more capital for other investments.

Of course, all of this is generic info and isn't specific to any property. Depending on what these properties are, there may be multiple avenues of income. My #1 recommendation for anyone starting to invest is to invest with your head and not your heart. Secondly, always identify exit strategies on all investments. I had a friend buy about 150 residential lots. He got a great price, but after closing costs and the costs to carry (taxes, mowing fees, etc.), he's only going to recognize a profit of about $750 on each lot he can sell within the next 180 days. Sadly, many of these will sit on the market for over a year and eat greatly in to his profits. Since land has an over-supply, his best exit might be to sell off packages of 15-20 lots at a time. But... I've digressed greatly...