New Active Duty Military Member

[Michael K.]

Hello BiggerPockets Community!

          My name is Mike Keating and I am an active duty Navy Submarine Officer living in the Northern Virginia area.  I have 12 years active duty and only another 8 more until I retire!  I went to school at UW-Madison for Electrical Engineering and have primarily a technical and project management background.

          I am originally from Wisconsin and plan on getting back to the Midwest within the next year or so.  My plan is to get started investing in the Southern Wisconsin market due to my personal familiarity with it, my connection with licensed subcontractor family members, and the low cost of entry.  I plan on doing a buy-improve-hold strategy to build equity and passive income to supplement my military pension in 8 years.  It would be nice to do real estate investing full time at that point too!

          I got my start in real estate by force when I bought my first home (a new condo) in Eastern CT in 2006.  When the market crashed, I was left holding the property and renting it at a loss for 8 years.  I was so far under water that my options were extremely limited about what I could do.  The only good deal I got was doing a HARP refinance in 2011 to lower my interest rate and pay it down sooner.  At any rate, I rode the property down to the bottom of the market and to a very minor recovery.  The economy hit Eastern CT really hard, so there was no way I was going to get my equity back.  Finally this February, I was able to sell my negative cash flowing property and a great burden has been lifted from me.  Despite this bad experience, I am not discouraged to get back in right away.  Besides, market signs are generally improving, I have extra money to spend, I have $100k in lost equity to earn back, and now I have BiggerPockets to help me do it right this time!

          I look forward to learning and engaging with each of you and building out my network in Wisconsin.  I also look forward to helping where/when I can.  I do want to apologize in advance if my response rates are slow or sporadic.  I tend to keep myself very busy by juggling many activities/hobbies at once.  My latest happens to be work travel and a Master's course through the Naval War College.  After that, I will probably move into the necessary courses to get a Project Management Professional certification and my real estate license in Wisconsin.     

Glad to be on board!

Mike Keating