Santa Barbara Night Owl here

[Drew M.]

Hello everyone!  I'm an attorney by day, real estate investing hobbyist by night.  I bought my first house about three years ago.  Although my only prior experience with rentals had been as a tenant, I ended up doing what is known around here as "house hacking."  That was my first taste of leveraged real estate investing.  It opened my eyes to the possibilities when you can generate passive cash flow based on other people's money.  My stepfather is a financial planner and he always told me that investing in the stock market was historically a better investment than real estate.  But I realize now that is only if you ignore the leverage you can get with real estate.  I got hooked on the concept and hope to grow my real estate "empire" to be a substantial source of income eventually (although my wife says I can't call it an empire with just two houses.) 

Currently have just one investment property in addition to our SFR residence, which was purchased last October. The SFR residence is zoned multi-family, so there is the possibility of adding a second unit later on, which I intend to do when I have the spare cash.

I've also got a few other personal projects going on.  Working this summer on converting a family-owned cabin into a vacation ski rental.  I also recently purchased some tax lien certificates on improved residential and commercial properties in Colorado as an experiment.  I have been research tax lien certificates for several years and have finally pulled the trigger on a few.  I started small in scale just to get some experience, and expect that I will end up getting my certificates redeemed within a year @10% simple interest.  I suppose there is a minimal possibility that the certificates will remain outstanding long enough for me to foreclose the properties but that is so remote that I am not counting on that in any way. 

I am interested in more exotic strategies than flipping or wholesaling because I think it plays more to my strengths.  While I can swing a hammer without hurting myself or others, I am by no means "handy."  I don't have the time or the interest in fixing up a property myself.  Thanks to my day job though I have had quite a bit of experience with real estate litigation, including foreclosures, litigation between co-owners, and property tax issues.  I feel comfortable reading a title report, pulling vesting deeds from a county recorder's website, or navigating special assessment districts.  When I first started lurking on BP I was thinking that an attorney would be an attractive partner for some people, but I am getting the impression that most people around here view their attorneys--if they have one at all--as a line item expense on their budget and not an integral part of their operations.  

Anyhow I am looking forward to participating on the discussion forums here.  While I can't give anyone specific advice about anyone's legal matters I hope I can still make some good contributions to the community and get to know some like minded folks.  See you out on the forums!