Future CT Lawyer/Wanna be Real Estate Investor

[MarcAnthony Bonanno]

Hello all,

My name is MarcAnthony, but all of my friends call me Marc for short, and I am in my third year of law school in CT. Growing up in CT I found the state to be rather boring so when college came around I left the state and went to school in Baltimore, MD at Loyola University. After college, I knew I wanted to pursue my law degree and I ended up back in CT because I missed my very large Italian family (also law school is f***ing expensive so financially it made a lot of sense). Well now that I'm quickly approaching my last semester of law school and soon will be facing the real world, I have recently been turning more attention to my financial future. Not that I was neglecting it before, but the pressure is on because soon I will be "fully adulting." Anyways, while focusing more and more on my financial future I was bitten by the real estate investing bug. Recently, I have been reading several of Brandon Turner's books from BiggerPockets and am starting to map out my plan to begin investing in real estate. I hope to start with a single-family or small multi-family home and work my way up from there. 

For those of you who have already started your investing journey, any advice you have for someone in my position? Also, for those of you located in Connecticut, are there any good networking groups/organizations that I could get involved in? 

Thanks for the help (to whoever reads this and responds) and hope everyone has Happy Thanksgiving next week.

Best Regards,

Marc

[Scott Hollister]

@MarcAnthony Bonanno welcome to BP! 

Congrats on the "fully adulting" soon, for me it was when I bought my first unit and had to go out on my own. 

Glad to see you're reading the quality books on this site! 

The best advice often heard is to start with a House Hack. This means buying a 2-4 unit property and renting out the other units. Often times the rent will cover or exceed your mortgage costs. Don't forget to keep reserves for maintenance and capital expenditures. 

You can also use the FHA loan, which allows you to put 3.5% down on this property as well. (Also look into the FHA 203K loan)

Another benefit to going with a multifamily is that it can "boost" your purchase price using 75% of the other income to help your debt to income ratio. A good thing especially for young adults who have student debt. 

I started exactly where you are, graduating, buying a house hack, and it was the best financial decision I've ever made. Focus your time on that and the area you want to invest in, become an expert there so you can act quick when a good property pops up. 

Hope to see you at the Manchester meet up and Happy Thanksgiving! 

-Scott