New investor from Los Angeles, CA but looking at Indianapolis

[Dave Labowitz]

Hello everyone! I've already met some great people through the meetup in Santa Monica but this is my first post on the forum. I have investments as a LP in three mobile home parks, 2 in AZ and 1 in CA, but have not done anything "on my own" yet. I'm looking to build a portfolio to create passive income through buy and hold investing. I'm open to fix and flip, as well, but only as a tool to create more money to keep growing my buy and hold portfolio.

I've heard good things about Indianapolis so I'm working on learning about the market (although I'm open to other suggestions, so long as it's a market where I can get 12%+ returns). I'm looking to do SFH or MFH residential to start, but would be interested in partnering with other investors to purchase larger, commercial apartment complexes.

For now, though, I have a ton to learn and lots of people to meet! Specifically, I'm looking to:

1. Learn about the best places and types of investments (I've heard mixed views on MFH residential) to buy in the Indianapolis market
2. Build relationships with wholesalers in that market
3. Build relationships with portfolio lenders. I can pay cash for my first several properties but will want to re-fi back out as quickly as possible to continue building my portfolio
4. Learn about rehabbing; I'll be completely new to it and have a lot to learn
5. Build relationships with potential partners for larger deals
6. Find strong vendors in Indianapolis (contractors, property managers, someone to photograph properties, etc.)
7. Make like-minded friends!

Outside of real estate, I have spent the last 10 years as an executive in startup technology companies and am currently working on launching an executive coaching practice. I have an MBA from Pepperdine University and prior experience as a software and database developer. In fact, I used to teach VBA and am just finishing up a VBA-powered Excel spreadsheet to model a buy and hold multi-property portfolio. I'm happy to share it and would love your feedback. If you're interested, please let me know and I'll send it to you.

Thanks, everyone! I look forward to being a part of this community.

-Dave