Just a few questions and a little intro

[Steven Pike]

Hey all, I’m super excited to start on this journey. I’ve spent the last couple of months soaking in as much as I can from the forums and the podcasts. I just graduated from fellowship and will start working as a vascular surgeon in August in Louisiana. This is a pretty significant increase in salary for my family. I think that in order to feel confident about investing I need to spend about 4 months paying off debts (credit cards, cars) before I can reasonably allocate money to investing. I have a few questions though: 1. My husband hasn’t been bitten by the real estate bug but is ok with investing. How do I get him as excited as I am? 2. I’m really interested in multi family units (4-8 units?), but should I start with single family homes before I jump to those? I intend to use a property manager for all of my real estate when I get there. 3. Being that I plan to use a property manager, how do I keep myself involved in the process adequately without stepping on toes? 4. Omg I’m so excited for this. How do I keep myself super excited while waiting the next few months to pay things down and gather Capital? Thank you so much, I’m really excited to be part of the community in any way that I can! Steven

[Josiah Kay]

Hi, Steve! Congratulations on what you accomplished thus far. It sounds as though you have set yourself up for success. 

1) I don't think there is a surefire way to do this, but I would approach it from the perspective of how real estate investing can be leveraged to meet both of your goals. In essence, you probably have been bitten by the bug because you found your "Why." By that I mean you figured out what real estate can do for you (allow you to "retire" early, allow you to spend more time with your family, allow you to travel, etc.) and because of that, you are totally invested in the idea of REI. I think the same practice can be used to guide your husband to figure out their "Why." How can REI be used to help him achieve what he wants?

2) Here I would give the ol' adage of "It depends." There are pro's and con's for both and it is just going to depend on which property type is going to align best with your long-terms goals. I would recommend listening to the following Podcasts (one on SFR and one on MFR):

https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2015/12/1...

https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2014/03/1...

3) Personally, I can't really speak to this because I self-manage. None-the-less, I think it would depend on what level of involvement you want to have. Do you want to be made aware of every issue, do you want every maintenance request run by you or only those over a certain dollar amount? I think upfront communication with your property manager on how involved you want to be would be the best course of action. I would just remember that you don't want to insert yourself so much into the process that it impedes your property manager's ability to do his or her job. Plus, at that point, you are paying the property manager AND still deal with the headaches of managing a property. 

4) Write-down your Why and your goals and keep them in the front of your mind. Instead of looking at these next few months as preparing for your real estate investing journey, view them as Step 1 of your real estate investing plan. Speaking of plan, take this time to map out your investing strategy and how you can best leverage your time, skills, and money to achieve your goals.