New to BP, not so much to REI! Hello from Seattle 🙋‍♂️

[Aman A.]

Hello BP community,

My name is Aman Agarwal and I am 29 years old. I live in the Greater Seattle area (Redmond) and work as a Software Engineer. I not so new to real estate investing but I haven't done it right in the last couple of years. I am personally a very DIY person and also do fine woodworking on weekends when I get time. I really enjoy the world of real estate, not just for the money or wealth, I just like dealing with properties.

My REI Story:

Two years ago I bought a town home for my primary residence on a 15 year mortgage. I had a bit more savings so in a year I bought the one next to where I live and started renting it out. Last month I closed on another town home in the area and it will be rented soon. All of these were new construction homes. Since the market is so hot here, I had good equity built in the homes (about 100K each) between the time I signed the contract and closed on the homes. However, the rents are just enough to cover my basic costs - mortgage, taxes and insurance. I have these two on 30 year mortgages. I currently self manage these since they are very close to where I live, and being new construction I don't expect lot of issues/ repairs in the near term.

Last September, I came across BP through one of Brandon's YouTube video. I quickly realized that my previous investments were not so great and quite risky. Coming across BP has been a complete eye opener for me. The immense knowledge has completely turned my thought process around REI. Since then I have numerous posts, watched weekly podcasts and more, read Long-Distance Real Estate Investing, Tax Strategies for the Savvy Real Estate Investor, The Book On Rental Property Investing, Managing Rental Properties books. I am currently reading Never Split the Difference by Chriss Voss.

With all this, I quickly realized that I was not investing with cash flow in mind, and self managing the properties was not at all scalable for long term growth. 

My Goals:

My goal for 2018 is to have at least one out of state SFR that cashflows. My long term goal is to build a rental property portfolio of around 40 cash flowing properties by the age of 40, mostly out of state. I want to get started with SFRs or small multi-families. My biggest inertia point in the last few months has been to figure out where to invest out of state. But then I thought, that anywhere is fine as long as the numbers work. Initially I thought that turnkey is the way to go, but as I read more and more I would rather want to buy non-turnkey properties that require some work that I can buy and hold for the long term.

I look forward to be an active member on BP and meeting with a lot more people here.