Newbie from Orange County, CA

[Anish Gala]

Hey BP!

I’m Anish, an aspiring investor (I’d like to get my first property before calling myself an investor) from Orange County, CA. A little about myself: I grew up in Orange County, graduated from UC Berkeley (Go Bears!), moved to San Francisco and worked in finance for 3 years before moving back down in 2014. Since then, I’ve been managing commercial real estate (retail shopping centers) properties which has been a great experience. At the same time, I’ve obtained my saleperson’s license and I just applied to take the broker’s exam.

I’m a bit embarrassed to say over the past 3 years I haven’t done much networking in the RE community. That was due to a very dumb mindset I had that the RE industry in southern California was full of the agents/investors you see on TV (i.e. Million Dollar Listing). But with the new year came a new me (corny/cliché, I know). Over the past month, I’ve researched RE investing, listened to podcasts, read books, and started going to networking events (my second one being a meetup I saw on BP). I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how receptive people are to meeting rookies in the industry and how open they are to share personal experience and knowledge. I’ve been grateful for the opportunity to learn from experienced people in this short amount of time.

I think I know the type of investing I want to get into short term (duplex, triplex, 4plex) and long term (apartment complexes and commercial retail). I’ve got tons more to learn, read up on, and see. In the meantime, I’d like to purchase my own and live in my own rental property (“hacking”) within the first half of this year. So any agents/brokers in OC with this experience would be a huge help!

I look forward to talking to many of you in the future. Hopefully one day I can contribute to BP as much as you all have given to new members like me.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Anish