New To Real-estate - Virginia - Hampton Roads

[John J.]

Hello BiggerPockets, I am John Jacobs, no relation to Jingleheimerschmidt. I am a government employee. I currently reside in Virginia. I hope to buy and rent homes for additional cash flow and an addition to my modest portfolio.

[Patti Robertson]

Welcome  

@John J. There are couple of great Southside REIAs you should check out.  Google the Tidewater Real Estate Investors Group and the Hampton Roads Landlord Assoc.  TRIG has a small cost, but is well worth for the education they put on.  HRLA is free, but most of the meetings are weekday.  There are a few held in the evenings.  There is one coming up in Sept that is being lead by a guy who I think is the smartest mortgage broker we have in the market.  He is going to teach How to Buy The Most Properties With the Least Cash With Freddie/Fannie Loans.  

Everyone always says they want to start in VB.  I live there too, but have very few rentals there.  It's a great place to flip, but the prices are so expensive to buy it makes it the worst cash flowing city in our market for rentals.  Rents just aren't much higher in comparison to the other cities.  When you are starting you will likely be using 30 year mortgages so you will have amortization on your side, so paying higher prices seems doable.  If you can buy hte same rent amount for 70% of the purchase price though, wouldn't it be worth looking at another city?  Just my two cents.