Procrastinating never got anyone anywhere!!

[Joseph Garner]

Hi everyone! This is my first post on here, and probably on any forum come to think about it. I currently reside in Clearfield Utah, a city about 30 minutes north of Salt Lake City. I’ve been interested in real estate for the past 5 years, and unfortunately have let a lot of good deals pass me by. 4 years ago, a friend and I were looking for homes in my area. At this time the market was great for investing. We had found 3-4 homes that we liked. However, he got cold feet and we never went in on a deal. Today those homes have doubled in cost, which would’ve made for a nice cash out refi (just recently have heard of BRRRR method) to invest elsewhere. Since then I have been hot and cold on the idea. For 3 months I do research, for 6 months I get stuck in the traditional work life flow and never do anything. At the beginning of the year my wife told me she was pregnant with our second boy. I am more and more excited as the time comes for his birth. It has me thinking that I don’t want to work 40+ hours a week until I’m 65 to retire and just whittle away. I want to live life and enjoy he time with my babies now, and as they grow. I have been looking out of state as in state it is hard to really find a deal that can yield the 1% rule. I have had my eyes set in Killeen Texas. Reason why is because my sister used to live that and has a couple rental properties. I’ve talked to lenders, real estate agents, I’ve ran numbers on over 50 deals, I’ve came up with 4 different scenarios on 20 of those deals with different numbers on rent, rehab, repairs, escape plans, etc. I am getting closer to pulling the trigger. However, I’m getting nervous. I’ve recently been reading “Long Distance Real Estate Investing” by Mr. David Greene, and it has me looking at other things. Mainly crime rate. Killeen has the 7th highest crime rate in Texas. So all these numbers I’ve ran, I think. Is it worth to rehab a place in a city with such bad crime? I look at other places on my street and they look the same they did when they were built. Is that because investors know it will just get ruined? Anyways, it’s great to be here and hopefully I can figure all this out so I can move forward with Killeen, or move forward in another city. Either way, I’ll be moving forward. Any advice would greatly be appreciated. Thanks, Joseph Garner