My name is Jamie and I currently live in Honolulu, HI. I have been investing in single family homes for almost 5 years now. I have always been interested in real estate but wasn’t really in a position to do much about it until recently.

I fell into owning rental properties almost on accident. My daughter went to school out of state and when we looking into housing options, it made more sense to buy her a house than to stay at the dorms or rent a place.

The market near Boise Idaho was dead at the time. We put an offer in on a cute 3 bedroom 2 bath house that was around $80,000. There were much better deals but this house was brand new, in a super safe area and would require little to no maintenance for the next 4 years plus there was a huge bonus room and a nice yard so my daughter could take her dog.

So basically it cost me about $5000 down and nothing a month for her to have housing. The mortgage payment was just under $500 a month(including everything) and she got two other student roommates to pay $300 a month each and split the utilities.

It was so easy that I decided to buy 5 more over the course of the next year and half. The market got hot after that and there weren’t many $50,000 - 60,000 houses left on the market.

The rest as they say is history, I continue to hold the properties and rent them out which more than covers my expenses. I am not getting rich but hopefully someday they will be my retirement income.

Now that I live in Hawaii, I want to start investing here. I have the money for a down payment for my home and possibly a rental but I don’t know that market that well yet so I am still doing research. I made one offer but got out bid. I refuse to get into bidding wars unless the property is a steal.

About me personally. I am a single empty nester who transferred to Hawaii for a job about 3 years ago. I use to live on Kauai many years ago, so island living is not new to me and it fits my lifestyle. For fun I go to this great karaoke bar in my neighborhood, belong to several social meet-up groups and try to at least one thing a day I can only to in Hawaii, to make sure I appreciate living here and don’t get too lost in the normal routine of working, eating and sleeping.

One final note, I am the worst with grammar and spelling, so I apologize in advance for those that I know this fault will drive crazy.

New to the site, not new to investing. Hawaii

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