New Young Interested Investor - Christian Tallet

New Young Interested Investor - Christian Tallet

New to Real Estate · Dayton, OH · Member since 2016 · 24 posts · 10 votes

Hello everyone, my name's Christian and I'm from Dayton, Ohio. I'm 20 years old and I currently hold a full time job a software support specialist. I'm also in school full time to finish up my associate's degree in software development. 

I want to get into buy and hold rental properties to be able to enjoy financial freedom in the long term. I'm not necessarily interested in quitting my job because I currently enjoy my job and still want to delve deep into software development. My current plan is to save up money for a down payment on a multi-family property where I will live in one of the units so I can hopefully live for free and maybe still get some cash flow. This will luckily allow me to have a smaller down payment since it wouldn't qualify as an investment property. I live with my parents still and so the only expenses I have are my car payment, food, going out, gas, and phone/insurance so I'm thankful that I'm fairly well off to be able to save money. The down side is I have about 15k in student loans yet to pay off and I've been putting as much as I can on them at the moment. My question to all you savvy investors out there, if you'd care to give me some input, is whether I should solely focus on my student loans then save an amount for a down payment, I should focus solely on the down payment to start my journey in building some wealth, or if I should do a little of both. I currently don't have to pay anything on my loans because I am still in school.

I'm sure I left plenty of things out about me and my plan, but I hope to hangout here on the forums and meet as many friendly investors as possible and hopefully a few locals.  I look forward to talking to everyone. Have a great day :D

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Investor · Fairborn, OH · Member since 2012 · 36 posts · 26 votes
10y

Christian,

Welcme to BiggerPockets it sounds like you have been reading a lot of the forums and listening to the podcasts already. Be sure to continue to do so. 

Everyone has a different tolerance for risk, only you know where yours is, but if I were in your situation I would start saving for a down payment on a multifamily property. I would then be able to use some of the cash flow to pay off the student loans when they are in repayment. 

There is no right or wrong way to do this, it's really up to what makes you comfortable. 

If you have any questions, there are a lot of investors all around the Miami Valley that will be happy to try to guide you along the way.  

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  • Investor · Fairborn, OH · Member since 2012 · 36 posts · 26 votes
    10y

    Christian,

    Welcme to BiggerPockets it sounds like you have been reading a lot of the forums and listening to the podcasts already. Be sure to continue to do so. 

    Everyone has a different tolerance for risk, only you know where yours is, but if I were in your situation I would start saving for a down payment on a multifamily property. I would then be able to use some of the cash flow to pay off the student loans when they are in repayment. 

    There is no right or wrong way to do this, it's really up to what makes you comfortable. 

    If you have any questions, there are a lot of investors all around the Miami Valley that will be happy to try to guide you along the way.  

  • New to Real Estate · Dayton, OH · Member since 2016 · 24 posts · 10 votes
    10y

    Thanks Steve! I'm glad to hear from someone nearby and I definitely appreciate the input. I was leaning toward getting the down payment because as you said I'd be able to get some cash flow from there to pay off the loan and save to move on to more investments. In the meantime, I'll continue to save and educate myself with the current market around the area to see where I can find a good deal. Thanks again!

  • Las Cruces, NM · Member since 2016 · 27 posts · 7 votes
    10y

    Find a good lender that can help advise you on qualifying for an FHA loan. He/She will sit down with you and go through your debt to income ratio to determine if you qualify and for how much so you can start looking. Then you can decide if you're just going to look for a listing on the MLS or try and market directly to property owners. My suggestion is that you focus on MLS listings considering your time schedule. You can try some free options like driving for dollars and calling for rent signs on small multi-res properties and posting ads on craigslist to try and drum up potential sellers. In regards to deciding whether to focus on paying off school loans, I would get your mortgage brokers advice. Personally (and take this with a grain of salt) I always like to choose to invest my money into a potential investment over giving it away to creditors, though I'm sure many on here would advise otherwise. My reasoning for this, especially considering the interest on your student loans won't be outrageously high (in relation to the usual high interest nordstrom card). My whole theory is if I can leverage my capital and use the income from that to pay a loan, once the loan is paid off, I'll still have the income. For example, if I want a new boat, I can spend that money on the boat or I can find an investment that provides me the monthly residual income and then finance the boat and use the income to make the payment. Again, this is just one strategy and many play a more conservative game. You're thinking along the right lines though! There's always a deal, go find one!!!

  • Paul AmegatcherPro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Brookville, OH · Member since 2016 · 488 posts · 363 votes
    10y
    Originally posted by @Christian Tallet:

    Hello everyone, my name's Christian and I'm from Dayton, Ohio. I'm 20 years old and I currently hold a full time job a software support specialist. I'm also in school full time to finish up my associate's degree in software development. 

    I want to get into buy and hold rental properties to be able to enjoy financial freedom in the long term. I'm not necessarily interested in quitting my job because I currently enjoy my job and still want to delve deep into software development. My current plan is to save up money for a down payment on a multi-family property where I will live in one of the units so I can hopefully live for free and maybe still get some cash flow. This will luckily allow me to have a smaller down payment since it wouldn't qualify as an investment property. I live with my parents still and so the only expenses I have are my car payment, food, going out, gas, and phone/insurance so I'm thankful that I'm fairly well off to be able to save money. The down side is I have about 15k in student loans yet to pay off and I've been putting as much as I can on them at the moment. My question to all you savvy investors out there, if you'd care to give me some input, is whether I should solely focus on my student loans then save an amount for a down payment, I should focus solely on the down payment to start my journey in building some wealth, or if I should do a little of both. I currently don't have to pay anything on my loans because I am still in school.

    I'm sure I left plenty of things out about me and my plan, but I hope to hangout here on the forums and meet as many friendly investors as possible and hopefully a few locals.  I look forward to talking to everyone. Have a great day :D

     Welcome to BiggerPockets. Make sure to check out GDREIA and other local real estate investing groups for networking and Education. 

    Paul

  • New to Real Estate · Dayton, OH · Member since 2016 · 24 posts · 10 votes
    10y

    Thank you @Paul Amegatcher, I'll definitely look into checking out the REIA in the area. Also, thanks for such a well though out input @Dave Bond, I'll definitely need to sit down with a mortgage brokers advice to see what I can do.

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