Buy and hold investor from Austin

[Andrew Allen]

Hello everyone, I bought my first house as a lieutenant in the Army after living in an apartment for a year and realizing I was paying someone else rent when I could be paying myself. The interest rate I got (6.75%) tells you how long ago that was.

Being stationed in Germany put a hold on building my empire, but since leaving the Army I've bought 3 more SFH in Austin. All cash flow positive, mainly due to luck since I can't claim to know what I am doing, besides reading a few books.

My grandmother owned 5 rental houses in Austin, all paid off, and that was her retirement plan. She never had to worry about Social Security checks or anything. I decided to do the same. The market is at a point now where I can't be successful unless I really know what I'm doing so that led me here.

My wife is managing our properties so she's been on BP at times but I didn't know about it until recently when talking to a vet buddy who is also into real estate (lots of vets get into real estate).

At first my goal was to get 5 properties that I could use to retire and then leave to my son. Then I had another son. So I changed my goal to 10 properties. Then I had a daughter. At that point I figured if I was going to get 15 properties (5 for each child) I might as well go all in and shoot for 100. After all, who knows how many grandkids I'll have... haha. 

I don't really like the idea of buying 1 at a time, so now I'm looking to move into multifamily. 

[Nasar Bhegani]

Well you came to the right place Allen. There's tons of guides and useful discussions on how to grow your rental portfolio. Depending on where you invest you can sometimes still get that 1% rule on your rental.

If you have any questions or want to network more feel free to reach out. Best of luck!