Austin Jones New Member Introduction

[Austin Jones]

Hello, Bigger Pockets Community!!

My name is Austin Jones and I am brand new to the community.  I am 26, and live in San Diego, CA with my amazing wife and a great big red Golden Retriever named Cooper.  I recently learned about this when searching for real estate investment podcasts and I am hooked!!

I am originally from San Diego CA (unfortunately very high home prices) but went to school in Lynchburg, VA and graduated in 2014 and was married shortly after. My wife and I rented a townhouse in Lynchburg for under a year until we could afford to buy a townhouse. From the beginning our intention was to rent it out after we could afford to purchase a home. An almost accidental strategic move we had in the first rental townhouse was that we were renting it from a realtor whom we ended up using to purchase our first townhouse. This was extremely advantageous as she was willing to negotiate our lease end date. She was either making rent off of us by staying in the rental townhouse longer, or she was making commission off of us if we bought a townhouse through us. This allowed us to have the flexibility we wanted when searching for our first purchase.

After about 6 months, we were able to purchase another house in the Lynchburg area with the intention of staying there for a few years .  However, due to a family member's health situation, we were forced to move back to San Diego after living in the house barely 6 months.  At first, our goal was to sell the home and use that to fund another down-payment in San Diego.  Unfortunately, with only 5% down, closing costs, and realtor commissions, we could not make our money back as we had virtually no equity in the home.  We had purchased a house that someone else had flipped and made all the money on (not my best decision).  As it was not selling at even a break even price, we decided to put that home up for rent as well as for sale.  We ended up getting a renter immediately with a very slight positive cash flow.  

While my grandparents did well with real estate investing and I thought I may be able to get a few dollars in cash flow from one or two townhouses, but I never had the dream of true financial freedom until I listened to the Bigger Pockets podcast.  Now I am excited!! 

I have enough saved up that I am thinking of purchasing another townhome in the Lynchburg, VA area. But upon reading a lot of these posts, it seems like that may not be the best market or ROI. My townhome cost $112K in 2015 and brings in $950.00/month. The house cost $157k and brings in $1,100/month. These are both under the 1% rule. I have a lot of friends still in the area and a great property manager that only charges 7%, so it feels secure. But I know I may be able to get a significantly larger cash flow should I look in another state/city. Does anyone have any recommendations for where to look without flying blind?

I've just started the "Long Distance Real Estate Investing" book by David Greene, so hopefully that will answer a lot of questions

Thanks for your time and I look forward to chatting with everyone.

-Austin