New Member from South Texas.

[Rene Gonzalez]

Hello everyone, 

My name is Rene Gonzalez. I'm from Laredo, Texas, but my family and I are currently living in South America and will be residing outside of the U.S. for the next 3+ years. I have been browsing BP website/forum for the last year and half and have read a few books on real estate investing and have learned a lot. I wish I had read the books and found this site about 10 years ago when I was in my 20s. I'm confident that it is not too late and I'm now ready to commit to purchase our "first" real estate investment and start the journey to financial freedom. We currently live frugally, have no debt, have built up our savings account and now we need to put it to work for us.

I have some accidental experience with rental properties that weren't purchase as investments. I have made some mistakes and learned from them.

1st Rental Property was a 2 bedroom condo I purchased when I was single (wish I had known about house hacking then). I got married, got a new job and moved cities. We kept the condo and decided to rent it out and manage it ourselves. It went great with the first tenant for about 2 years. The second tenant not so much. We lost a couple of months of rent that went unpaid and the tenant picked up and left one day. It caused some stress as we were carrying two mortgages for a few months and we lived a few hours away from the property. So, we decided to sell it. 

2nd Rental Property. We are currently renting our home in McAllen, Texas, but this time with the help of a property management company. This property was purchased as a home and not as an investment and the numbers are not great, but not bad. We kept it as a possible landing spot when we return to the U.S.

My area of interest for investing is single family, duplex or 3-4 unit apartments in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas area and San Antonio, Texas.