Investor in Colorado Springs, Colorado

[Justin Loa]

Hi everyone!

I have spent a good portion of my 30 year life in Colorado Springs, CO. Currently working a full time job and having a blast but have always had side projects that made some extra money. I used to do some handyman work for realtors. That gave me a lot of great skills to transition into the field of real estate. Also did 70k of sales on Ebay, but the items I was selling started to lose my interest. 

Now I am moving on to the realm of Real Estate. Always been interested by this field but as many people say, it starts off so intimidating. I have dipped my toe in it by renting out rooms in my house to friends in the past. This was awesome because it lowered my mortgage payment. I have been pouring over the podcasts and books suggested and feel I have a small foundation and idea of where I want to go.

I am still young so time is on my side. I like the buy and hold strategy and currently own a house in the downtown area (literally takes 15 minutes to walk there). My current actions are looking for doing some light cosmetic repairs on my current house (fencing, flooring and other misc) using the equity in the form of a HELOC (25k) and personal money (25k). I don't see it costing much more then 5k to get it ready. But first I have to search for a new place to owner occupy and start again. The BRRRR strategy seems to work rather well and receives excellent feedback on the forums. The rent for my current house appears to be in the 1150-1250 realm (3br 1b). Current mortgage all in costs 750/mo.

Here are my hurdles:

1: Analysis paralysis- I keep getting hung up on the numbers and that may be due to a lack of confidence. 2% rule, 50% rule and so on. It gets even more confusing for me since it will be owner occupant and will be putting down a smaller down payment. Heck, it comes down to "Am I even doing this right?"

2: I can be social, I promise, but like many people, I don't want to be a complete idiot in front of someone. I am working on networking and looking for like minds to bounce ideas off of and hear about their success. 

So it comes down to this, Anyone know of any REIA that meet in town or does anyone want to just go grab some coffee and share some experiences?!

Phew, that turned out a bit longer then I thought. Anyway, look forward to seeing everyone on the forums!

J. Loa