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.

[Justin Cambra]

@Aman A. welcome to BP. Based on your post I’m assuming you work at MSFT. I recommend that you go to the Cascadia Investor Alliance eastside edition meet ups in Kirkland. They are the first Friday of the month. Also I recommend going to @Tarl Yarber Fixated on Real Estate meetups in Renton. Both are great venues to meet up with local investors and usually have MSFT employees that you could connect with. Lastly check out this event Tarl is putting on at the end of the month. I hope to meet you at one of these venues to learn about your out of state investing journey and share my experiences of doing the same. 

https://www.pnwrealestateexpo.com

Good luck!

JC