I'm new from S. Louisiana

[David Day]

Hi BP community! My name is David Day, I am 26 years old, and I am from South Louisiana. I own a captive insurance agency that I started scratch in 2015 which is where my primary income comes from; I'm still a small agency but I continue to grow and started earning a profit after my first year and haven't stopped since. I also do freelance computer programming and web development on the side, though that only produces $1,000 here and there nothing really to write home about.

I do not have very much background in real estate. I've co-bought a single family dwelling with my dad that was financed on a 5 year balloon payment that I intended on refinancing. The situation changed when the opportunity to start this agency came up and so I decided to sell my portion of the home to my dad so that I could cash-flow properly (or at least show it on paper). Because I was so young, finding a lender without my dad co-buying the home as well as getting a line of credit for my business was tough, but I never missed a payment on my home and then I converted my line of credit to a traditional 5 year note of which I paid off in 90 days (I had told the lender my intentions so she worked with me on not including an early payoff penalty). Right now I am living in a home in which my dad owns, but luckily I am not being charged any rent.

What interests me in real estate is that right now I am leasing a small office for my business. It is around 800 sq. ft. and after my rent and lot charges I pay $910 a month (which is great for where I'm at). However, I know of several agents who work for the same company as I do that say that the best thing that they've ever done is purchase the property that they do business on. Most of the people who I talk to own the property and have 2-9 units that they lease in a shopping center style complex, though some own just one large building. However, I would be a fool to say that jumping into commercial real estate doesn't intimidate me a bit.

What I'm looking at doing right now is purchasing a piece of property that is about 1/2 an acre in a great location on a corner lot for about $200k and building something that has 2 or 3 units (to be honest I don't know how many can fit with a parking lot). I would have one unit that I used for my insurance business, it would pay the company that I would setup for my real estate dealings like any other business would, and then leasing the 1 or 2 remaining units to help offset the financing costs.

Anyways, that is the who, what, where, and why of me! I look forward to participating in the forums, especially bringing my insurance expertise on how not only to properly cover risks but also using insurance policies to help finance purchases.