Buy and Hold Newbie from Minnesota! To network + form my team!

[Kris V.]

Hello!

I am Kris, currently live in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Have been working in Technology for the past 14 years and love what I do and wish to continue my full time employment. Have been looking at real estate as something to grow wealth, gain passive income and also diversify from paper assets/Wall Street.

For the past year or so, I have researched a ton, read a lot of books( still reading) , I think I must have heard all the podcasts there are :). What an awesome resource BP is! I have also started to save and I am about 75% there for capital required for my first deal. In the next 3 months I will reach my goal for capital needed. Picked Single Family Residential Buy and Hold as my investing strategy. Initially want to buy properties with enough reserves + 25% down, I will loosen this up once I get comfortable but that is what I am shooting for right away. Would like to buy the first property that is rent ready in 2017(Fall ish) and grow/acquire properties every year from there.

Primarily looking at the suburbs of Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota(fine tuning the area to a few suburbs as we speak!). Once I am done with couple of deals, I will venture into little bit of rehab and make them rent ready. I will be hiring property management starting with the first property, primarily die to the limited time I can allocate with my full time employment.

I have started to attend the local REI meetings on Meetup(BP, Affluence in REI, TCRE), MNREIA and have met a few fantastic folks. Looking for folks who are experienced and are willing to meet over coffee or lunch to share their wisdom of course I will be buying :). Along with this, I am also looking for investor friendly Realtors, Property Managers, Lenders and attorneys!

Looking forward to connect with local investors/realtors/lenders/PMs and learn and contribute to this awesome community!

Kris

[Michael Lee]

Hello and welcome for finally joining BP!  You sound like you have a good plan.  Having a full time W-2 job is a good way to start and possibly get a loans and keep doing real estate investing part time and getting others to get any repairs/renovation for you.  Getting started in real estate part time is a good way to go.  You just need to find the ones who will you get things done for you and who you can count on.  Beware of "sellers" and make them earn your trust before you can turn them loose.  Make them call you in the evening to catch you up while still doing your W-2 job.  I do not know if your job requires weeks that are into  making you work over 40 hours. But have a regular evening schedule to help yourself and your contractors who know and understand your goals.

There are a few things for you to do after you select your niche and market area and before you start making offers. One of those things is to form some type of corporation or a LLC. You might have to hire an attorney, and/or a CPA, and/of a tax consultant to advise you as to what your best selection is. This will help you keep your personal stuff out of reach from legal liabilities from your business. Another thing you should consider is. to get your financing settled, if necessary, and get a loan letter that states the average time to close a loan and the maximum amount of a loan that you qualified for.

Another pretty important thing to consider is an office location that is convenient and has minimal distractions.  You can locate that office in your living place if that location can be closed off and you will not be too easily distracted.  Stay in as much control that you can for anything you are responsible for.  Do not make any assumptions for things you are responsible for will just happen.  Track all of your income and expenses on all projects that you are responsible for in a report for that you can review regularly with some people you trust and know and understand your goals.  

That procedure will help you, hopefully, reduce expenses and increase your income by reviewing them regularly.  Do not try to do everything yourself.  By the way I am 60 years old and quite opinionated but I am encouraged to help ones like you.  Beleive it or not I had a brain annuerism and a stroke a little more than 6 years ago and I still cannot walk.  I thought originally that I would be well in about 6 months.  I live in Dallas County Texas.  The bulk of my experience was in the construction business.  I also held an active real estate broker license for about 30 years.  I closed a few deals for others and have only done 1investment for myself.

Always remember, in the beginning especially, to do a math analysis on your prospective properties and try to look at them before you make an offer or at least have a clause in the purchase contract that says in the upfront (about 10 to 15 days) you will make a detailed inspection and possibly back out of the subject deal without a penalty that will not hurt you to much.  Do not cut any corners to make a project look better on paper but not for real.

Someone like you, needs to find local and experienced Team members that you beleive will help you reach your goals.  The primary Team members are typically the Attornies/Lawyers, real estate Agents/Brokers, a CPA ( or accountants you know and trust), Home Inpectors, Property Manegers, Geberal Contractors, and Handymen.  In the begining, keep it simple and do the average finish that is in that neighberhood.

Be careful with the Internet and the dishonest people use it to try to emotional sale you.  Mistakes and fear are pretty normal so learn from any mistakes made and turn any fear into something positive.  Just about everybody that has success says you need a mentor.  They say that failing a deal is typical and do not let that make you quit.  Just learn how to move on to the next one.  It is rare that you will fail and everybody does.  Learn how to walk away from bad deals.

Good luck to you!