2 working parents and 4 kids... getting into REI

[Anna Milligan]

Hello, My name is Anna Milligan and I'm new to Bigger Pockets.  I am a professional structural engineer in Columbus, Ohio.  My husband and I have long been interested in real estate investment. We have four tiny humans scurrying around our home these days so that adds joy and challenges to our day to day lives.  I have background in the construction industry, we've done full-gut kitchen renovations to two of our own homes, and we don't get intimidated by hard work.  We thought that we wanted to do a flip/rehab, doing the work ourselves but it didn't take long to realize that would be insane - both a time-suck and a money-suck.  So, we sidelined the idea for a while to rethink our strategy.  Finally, we decided it was time to do something.  We lined up some financing so we have money to move forward with a deal when we find it and reconciled that a bulk of the work would be done by a contractor.  I've done a lot of reading, watched webinars, and listened to countless podcasts.  We don't know everything by any stretch, but we at least have an idea of what we're getting into.

The goal is to be able to send our four tiny humans to college. So, long term financial growth is our ultimate goal.  Our current jobs won't bring us what we need to afford this gift to our kids.  After talking to our real estate agent who specializes in REOs and does a fair amount of work with investors, we are starting to think that going straight to a buy-and-hold rental is the best initial strategy because we want to look at the long term picture.  The obvious downside is that we won't be leveraging my knowledge of construction/design and my project management skills.  That's okay.  (Although, if I'm being totally honest, I was pretty excited to do a flip for those reasons.)  Maybe that's still on the table down the road.  Who knows. The long-term picture is what we're trying to focus on.

We are chomping at the bit to get started. Because of our brood of offspring, we're going to start an LLC in order to protect our assets and guarantee a roof over their little heads should things go terribly wrong. The excitement is building and our IDEA is turning into a BUSINESS!