Newbie from San Francisco

[William A Edwards]

Hi everyone! 

I have been a big fan of the podcast, webinars, and blog for a bit now and I decided to pull the trigger and become a pro member.  This community of supportive investors sharing knowledge and helping people out is truly unique and I am happy to become part of it.

I am originally from Philadelphia, but have lived in St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco (where I currently am settled). My wife and I are renting for the time being, but I am interested in real estate investing being a good chunk of my investment portfolio, and learning as much as I can along the way!

I have been leaning toward single family or small multifamily properties.  I started off by leveraging my contacts who have recently bought homes in various markets to see if their real estate agents work with investors and would be willing to work with a long distance investor.  I have been in contact with agents in Philadelphia and Salk Lake City.  I have been using the Brandon's funnel, looking at deals myself and that the RE Agents send and analyzing them with the calculators (sometimes more than one calculator for the same property), but I have not made any offers yet.

I am interested in job and population growth, and how that shapes the communities we to invest in. I am still trying to decide on my first market to focus on. I will likely carry the first property or two in my own name, then switch to an LLC. I have some colleagues interested in syndicating, and all of us are collaborative individuals would would like to leverage our respective strengths to work together on deals. I am looking for friendly advice as I (and we) begin this process.

I have educated myself in other areas of personal finance (tax efficient index fund investment, retirement accounts, etc), and would be happy to pass on whatever knowledge I have to someone who wanted advice on that aspect of investing as well! (I assume most people here are sophisticated in all investment areas but couldn't hurt to offer).

Thanks!