Newbie in Michigan, learning, learning, learning.

[Chad Clark]

Hello to everyone.

Yup, I'm new, but not completely inexperienced.   I just did it the hard way first.  Luckily, I'm one lucky person it seems and avoided most of the pitfalls right off the bat.  

I'll go ahead and tell my story since some might find it amusing.  I bought my first house for 37k.  Seemed a steal of a deal 5br,2 bath.  Not huge, but since I'm a cheap bastard, it stank to high heaven of dog piss and whatever else died in it.  I found a town that had dying businesses left and right.  3 large factories had just went out of business and people were fighting to get out. 

My day job doesn't matter where I lived so it seemed perfect.  It was.

I'm now sitting on a 100k house, maybe more since I never got it appraised since then after all my slow improvements I did over the years.  I have a smart house now since with my job it's simple stuff.  (I'm a tech type).  

Decided to jump into real estate investing and went out to look at a property just last month.  It was an auction and I had 2 days to decided to bid or not.   I got an appt to see it and found a place that also stank like death, but when I went downstairs, it had a new furnace, still with tags, new hot water tank, new wiring (and I know wiring), new plumbing, and some new foundation support beams.  then outside, the siding was new, roof was new, and I just couldn't pass it up, this is a dream house to me.  30k bid and no one else competed and it was mine.   Fastest closing ever too, literally 2 days.    Hudzu.com   If you have to deal with them, be happy.  Don't get discouraged by all the heavy Indian accents.  They are that good.  Soooo on top of things.

Turned out I'm lucky as hell and it was just that good.  Ripped everything down to the studs and of course, my mistakes started showing up.  I did the newbie thing of trying to get the "good ol boys" contractors, because Cheap!  Hahahaha.   Yeah, Ok, I learned my lesson.  6k later I barely had decent drywall and not much else.  Luckily, my brother does drywall and happened to quit his job.  My savior!  I redid the wiring, plumbing, and paint.  Thanks for me being a bookworm and knowing that stuff.  (I really hate 4 way, 3 light switches, so confusing).   Floors come in tomorrow actually.  Considering the other houses sold in the area around 180k and looked worse than what I got, I'm soooo looking forward to the appraisal of this one.  I think I got a little forced appreciation here.  Oh, just a little bit.  I spent 15k on the renovations since I don't mind eating the time spent fixing since I paid in cash anyway.  

Anyway, enough self patting on the back.  That's where I am.  Starting out and having no clue.  Decided to pick up a book to learn more and it mentioned this site so I landed here.   So Brandon Turner, if you read this.  Great book, I was impressed.   The info was amazing.   I listen to audiobooks while driving at work and I spent entirely too much time stopping so I could write things down.  Says a lot.  

To everyone else, hope to talk to you more and I'm always open for advice.  I love constructive criticism.  Yeah, really, not just saying that.  Pointing out my screw ups so helps.  I'm already doing thing in retro because I kind of am brave, but at least read up later.  Hunting that CPA and lawyer now so the rest goes smooth.   Good thing the cash flow is going to be strong.