New member from Central Pennsylvania

[Matt V.]

Hello BP!

It looks like the 'cool thing' to do here is to introduce ourselves to the community, so I'll take a second and do that. 

I'm a central Pennsylvanian, near State College (home of Penn State). I am looking to get into the real estate space through rentals. I'm heavily invested in equity markets and have leftover cash flow from my 9-5 today as an engineer, and I'm thinking of diverting some of my monthly net into real estate rather than stocks. I've done the math several times and am convinced that real estate is often a better investment than broad stock portfolios. However, I'm a big proponent of having deliberate processes and taking time to learn before jumping in, so at the moment I'm assembling a group of advisers, reading books, and diverting money into a down payment fund (rather than just moving money, to ensure I give myself time to learn).

My goal is to have several thousand in cashflow in 20-25 years (I'm 30). I do not need the cashflow today, and would likely reinvest what I would receive. I enjoy my job but would also like to have some feeling of controlling my own destiny and have the ability to make decisions about my future as I see fit.

As I see it, there are two primary classes of rentals in my area: college students (which can be split into undergrad vs. grad students) and lower-income (in surrounding neighborhoods). There are some short-time support staffers who may have rentals, but in general real estate is cheap so even short-timers may buy homes.

I tend to believe the 1% rule does not hold here, but that's where I am in the process: learn what the advantages and disadvantages of the different classes of rentals are here, and learn which type of market I'd like to focus on first. Goal is to find a first rental in 2017, assuming the numbers I plug in still convince me it's appropriate.