Accidental landlord in Greenville, SC

[Dan Healey]

Hello BP!  Just joined and loving the site.  Great content and tools and everyone seems very willing to help and share, which is great.  Looking forward to getting more engaged.  

I do own a rental property but I had never really planned to be a RE investor.  I call myself an "accidental landlord" because the property I own used to be my primary residence which I ended up renting out of necessity.  I relocated for a job in 2012 and was underwater on the house, so I decided to try my luck at renting it out.  4 years later, the market in Greenville, SC has come back strong and I now have a healthy amount of equity.  

The unit I own is a townhouse and while I do like that the HOA covers many items that I'd otherwise have to pay a property manager for, recent HOA fee hikes have me a bit worried. So I've started to investigate selling and investing in either a SFH or duplex.

Funny, 4 years ago I would have had to bring a check to closing, now I have to worry about capital gains taxes!  I've started to look into doing a 1031 exchange, which is how I stumbled upon BP.   

I currently live in Connecticut, which presents a little challenge I think in finding new properties in South Carolina.  But I'm down that way a few times a year for work and I really like the growth that's going on there. 

Outside of this rental property, I've bought and sold 2 primary residencies and each of those I did without an agent.  I learned a lot by going through the process myself and not using an agent (and saved lots of $) which is probably why I feel more confident now in stepping up my REI game.    

Looking forward to soaking up the great content on the BP site and contributing to discussions wherever I can add value.  See you around the site!   

Dan