New Member from Buffalo NY

[John Veith]

Hi Everyone, 

New to the site, from Buffalo NY. I started in real estate in 2010 when I got out of grad school and bought a 2-Unit house, lived in the lower and rented the upper unit.  Worked my regular job and paid off that house and student loans in a few years. Moved out a couple years ago and started renting both units while renovating my single family house.  Man that rent money came in handy then. Now that I'm wrapping up my home project (as much as one ever does anyways), I'm looking at the paid-off rental and thinking I need to take some of that equity and expand my real estate portfolio.  I would say it's worth about $130k now and I have less than half of that into it so I could get some pretty good cash out of it.  

I'm interested in most areas of REI but I would prefer to buy 2-4 unit buildings that need a little work, so that I can add some sweat-equity and increase the value, then hold and rent them. In my day job I'm a structural engineer by training and involved in construction now, so I'm not afraid of that kind of thing. I would like do about 1 per year, depending on the work required. That said I'm also interested in flipping if it was the right project, and very interested in holding mortgage notes.

Anyone have any ideas/advice on how to proceed? How much and how best to take cash of the paid off house? Finding houses not on MLS?

Thanks, and see yall on the site.