Trying to make a smart entry. . . San Francisco Bay Area

[Pei-Chung Ting]

Hi my name is 'Chung and I am looking to make a few smart moves to enter real estate investing.

I live in Albany, CA which is a tiny town right next to Berkeley and work a 1/2 time position at the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley.  I was able to get into a tiny 1943 "FHC Minimum Standard A" starter home in Albany as my primary residence and slowly remodel it from 700 square feet to the lot maximum 1500 square feet doing the majority of the work myself.  In the process, I learned a little bit about building codes, dealing with city planning department, inspectors, hiring help and sub-contractors, and obviously learn a lot about the various aspects of single family home remodel and construction.

I did my undergraduate studies in Architecture but never pursued that career path but instead decided to record music and ended up building home recording studios and learning a lot about sound-proofing, acoustical treatments, and other helpful but niche/technical things that end up quite applicable in improving real estate properties that are near loud things like freeways, train tracks, and airports.

Around 2008, I purchased a single family home in San Mateo 1/2 inherited, I bought out the other half from an overseas relative.  I did not have a lot of resources at the time to do anything except hang on by the skin of my teeth and rent out the tired home with the most minimal of repairs at a lower than market rate.  My gut instinct was it was a very favorable time to buy "something", and this was the deal that fell into my lap.

In the interim, the house is paid off and funds have become available to make a major remodel to build out the home from a tired 1000 sq/ft. 2 bedroom 1 bath to a well finished 2000 sq/ft. 4 bedroom 3 bath in a desireable neighborhood.  Currently, I am working on my design and beginning the planning approval and permit process with the city.

When completed, I would like to leverage this as my entry point into starting out as a real estate investor, and need some help figuring out some very important first moves to not muck it up too badly.

In the long-run, I would like to expand my debt-free holdings in this and other "desireable" locations, but understand that in order to expand at a faster pace, I will need to leverage into more deals somehow and then circle back around to pay the loan back down.  From my preliminary ponderings and reading on this site, some options are:

1) take out a loan against the completed house (supported by strong rent) and look into another investment

2) sell and go cash strong into 1 or 2 other projects

3) pursue a multi-unit.

Of course these are simplistic ideas and I need to read a lot more, get my pencil out and run some scenarios.  I would also love to learn about and consider stronger moves that I am unaware of.  Since I am not financing and will not have a fire under my butt through the renovation process on this house, the fireworks won't really start until the project nears completion so I have some time to study and consider various subsequent investment options.