Introductions from New Zealand

[Ryan Spearman]

Hi all. Just thought I should write and introduce myself as I'm new to biggerpockets and I have a tonne of questions about all sorts of things, so I figured I'd get my story out of the way first.

I have owned rental properties for about 14 years, but until now I'd consider myself a "hobbyist" investor. I've kind of just floated along hoping for the best, now I can see what can actually be done I really want to build up a buy and hold business based on single family homes and transition out of my job in the film industry to financial independence.

Fortunately I have actually been very lucky with my investing and sold my last rental a year ago during a very inflated period in the local market and fully paid off all my mortgages, including the family home giving me capital somewhere in the region of 1.1-1.2 million, now I just need to get that capital to start making me some cash flow so I can reduce my hours spent on the film set and increase my time hanging out with my young family.

Since my local market (Auckland, New Zealand) is still extremely expensive and rents relatively low (nothing I have ever owned in Auckland has ever come close to positive cashflow, I just thought I was buying for future gains), I started looking in a city 3 hours drive from Auckland called Rotorua, and discovered it has much better prices.

I have bought 2x 2 bedroom properties this year. We call these sort of properties 'units', I think they are akin to what would be called condos in the States, although almost always single level, and generally never more than 9 or so joined together. They are generally all owned separately. 

The first is the cheaper of the 2 purchased at 145,000, the second for 243,000. The cheaper one is on a 15 year mortgage the 2nd is currently interest only. I'm hoping to pay the first one off as soon as possible using income from my job in the film industry and then start concentrating on the next.

In the meantime however I want to concentrate on finding plenty more deals like these that have positive cashflow that I can pour back into the original mortgage and get it out of the way as soon as possible, all the while increasing the rent over the years.

Finding finance at this stage has been very easy as I have no mortgage on my own house, I simply take 20% of the purchase price out of my own overdraft for the down payment, then borrow the full purchase amount in order to pay back the overdraft.

Despite wanting to go large, I think I'll try and use these two properties to iron out my full landlording systems so when I do have multiple properties it doesn't turn into a disaster.

Anyway, plenty of questions over the coming times- acquisition, management, financing. All advice and suggestions would be muchly appreciated

Ryan