New member from Utah Moving to Indianapolis to invest

[L.D. Stauffer]

I'm 33 years old (born in 1983) and never went to junior high or high school. I have a 3rd grade education. At age 29 I found myself supporting a wife, an ex wife (child support) and 2 kids on food stamps and working for minimum wage. That's when I had the, "I'VE HAD IT MOMENT!!!" I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Fast forward 5 years... after reading many business books and working like no one else, I'm now retired with two successful million dollar companies that I personally started from the ground up. One in healthcare and the other in ecommerce. I've learned that there is no obstacle that can't be overcome with the right amount of grit and willpower.

After being able to retire last year, I've spent the last 6 months in South America backpacking with my wife and our 3 little kids, ages 1, 3 and 4. But abruptly my wife decided that life on the road was not for us and made us come back to the U.S..

Now that I'm home I'm ready for my next adventure. Real Estate. I've spent the last 2 months devouring 10 hours daily every podcast and book I can on my new found obsession. Other than house hacking and living in the basement of our now paid for home, I know next to nothing about real estate. But as I mentioned before, with grit and willpower anything can be conquered. I'll be moving from Salt Lake City, Ut. to Indianapolis Indiana with 500k personal cash plus a 10k or so monthly risidule to purchase "buy and hold" properties. My master plan is to build up a 75 unit (100% paid for) property portfolio within the next two years.

So that's me. I'm hoping to meet and network with individuals here on BP that can learn from me and in return I can humbly learn from them. I have grit and talent that I can share but other than that, I'm a green real estate investor through and through and am in dire need of a real estate "friend/mentor" looking for a fun, crazy and wild ride. We all have things we can learn from each other and I'm a humble student that always takes action. I would love to connect with someone in either Salt Lake or Indianapolis as I'll be heading out there within the next couple months to start and I don't know anyone. 

[L.D. Stauffer]

11/29/2016

Well it's been barely over a week since arriving in Indianapolis and today I closed my first deal!
2034 e Legrande ave
Indianapolis, IN 46203
For $17,500
I know that nobody really reads these posts but in my magical world, somebody wants to drop off a big bag of money, or plate of chocolate chip cookies:) to the above address. Either or will be fine with me

Leading up to today has been a series of emotional roller coasters. From good days to downright depressing ones. The Sun still hasn't decided to show, so just as the first day, I'm still completely lost. On a good note, I didn't spend too many nights shivering in the backseat of my Civic. The wife of a local investor actually took pity and put me up in one of their unoccupied units. If I was a normal person, I'd pony up the dough for a hotel instead of raking leaves and scrubbing out toilets for room and board. But the fact is, I still suffer from the deranged allusion that somebody could snap their finger and I'd find myself again on welfare. I know it's not healthy to think this way but my wife's working on me. I still have some rough edges that need polishing.

Networking has been interesting to say the least. Probably mostly because of my overpowering, yet shaky voiced salesperson approach. It causes some investors to run in the opposite direction and others to kindly decline from "EVER" meeting me in person! I guess I can't judge them too harshly, sometimes I can be a little off-putting, even for myself:) Plus 1 week definitely isn't long enough to cultivate good working relationships, but if I'm not looking at properties or trying to figure out the streets, I'm twiddling my thumbs and my brain is going like 50 miles a second! Too soon is never soon enough! But there have been some really nice people that have taken their time to personally meet with and coach me in the right direction.

•Harvey Levin (Harvey property management group) who spent 4 hours with me over dinner and many phone calls there after telling me that "being positive is a good thing but knock it off and look at the actual facts!" Sometimes I definitely need reality checks:)

•William Hull who met with me at his closed office on Black Friday for at least an hour.

•Jaren from the Brett Snodgrass team. Jaren took me out to breakfast and then (probably uncomfortable for him at first) let me tag along all afternoon as he drilled out locks and broke into all their recently purchased properties to do reports and take pictures. He answered a million questions and actually helped me get my first deal, the property I closed on today.

All in all, it's turned out to be a great week! After closing I threw an ad on Craigslist for a Contractor/Handyman and my phone has been literally blowing up all day! I actually had to take it down just so I could write this post. Finding a contractor is going to be easier than I actually thought. Next step, rehab!

-L.D. Stauffer