aspiring Atlanta area investor eager to learn

[Sean Fortner]

Hi folks!

I'm a 32 year old IT professional born and raised in metro Atlanta and currently based in NYC. I'm fairly new to BP and really excited about what I can learn from the community. I've had an interest in real estate for quite a while, especially after I learned about monolithic dome structures as a teenager. I love seeing innovation and change, and I think there's a lot of potential in smart, sustainable housing and next-generation fabrication methods. I hope my journey in real estate allows me to be a part of that.

I've been investing in real estate for years now, rehabbing foreclosure properties with my family. Outside of my mom's primary residence and a bad first investment we're trying to get rid of, we have 11 SFR's in the city of Atlanta, 9 of which are rented. It's been a struggle at times, to be sure. No shortage of horror stories and nightmare tenants. Some of our houses are approaching "war zone" territory - we had one that got shot up and had to sell it off. Section 8 headaches, dealing with vacancies and vandalism, police... the list goes on.

In hindsight, we really didn't know what we were doing. We kept rehab and maintenance costs low by limiting outside contracting, only bought the cheapest houses we could find, and never really considered financing strategies that could offer us more opportunities. Now my mom wants to enjoy her retirement, so I'm taking over her half of the portfolio. I realize now that I have a decent amount of equity at my disposal and I'd really like to use it to grow our little side thing into a full-fledged business.

It is a challenge to be actively involved when I'm not physically present, but I'm fortunate enough to have a reliable partner and property manager that handles nearly everything. Once we finish one or both of the remaining rehab projects, I plan to move back down to GA and take a crack at real estate investment full-time-ish. For now, I'm just preparing by reading every book I can get my hands on, studying for my NY state license (which should transfer easily when the time comes), doing everything I can to improve our management and reduce overhead, and, of course, spending lots of time on BP. 

Glad to be here and I look forward to meeting fellow members, both here in NYC and back home in Atlanta.