Relocating to Tucson, Arizona

[Gregory Pleshaw]

Greetings, Gregory Pleshaw.  I'm a former journalist in business, tech and fine arts who is currently an Uber driver with real estate investment aspirations.  I have absolutely zero experience in real estate, which includes never owning a primary residence, but both of my parents owe whatever "fortunes" they have had to real estate and it's now a pleasure to see both of them in later retirement (dad, 85, mom, 79) living primarily off their real estate investment property. My dad did very well at one point when I was still a youngster, and I have fond memories at eight of "helping" him renovate a property by gleefully taking his instructions to heart and using a hammer to take down old plaster and drywall from an investment property in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. in the late 1970s when it was a very distressed neighborhood and not the more upscale and renowned neighborhood it is today.  

I grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, hence the background in arts journalism, but due to the era, I became interested in tech journalism also and that led to an interest in business topics and clips in local papers and magazines as well as national clips in Wired, Fast Company, the Industry Standard and others during the dot-com era.  My only claim to "real estate" writing was a writer for hire project I wrote for a social entrepreneur called "the Cash Garden" which was designed to give working class people a blueprint for using manufactured housing units as a way to build wealth.  I've also written a few articles about outstanding houses for the real estate section of the Santa Fe daily, as well as website copy for a number of real estate companies looking to provide their clients with "neighborhood information" on their websites.

Currently, my wife and I live in Santa Cruz, California, but on a road trip two years ago, she fell in love with the deserts around Tucson and so by the end of the summer, we intend to move there.  I'm soon to hit 50, which seems like a good time to grow up and maybe follow my folks into real estate investing.  My current narrative is "my wife and I are moving to Tucson where I plan to drive for Uber, take some real estate courses, and enjoy the outstanding Native American traditional and contemporary art scenes in Arizona and just see what happens."  

My current sense of what that looks like is likely buy and hold rental properties.  My hat's are off to house flippers, but that game strikes me as an emotional "flip-flop" that I probably couldn't stomach despite the returns...but who knows?  Time changes everything...I might return to this post in a few years and my views will have changed.  I found BiggerPockets.com by simply typing "best real estate podcast USA" and I just started listening.  Looking forward to the journey and I'm happy that this community exists, because despite my parent's experience, I don't really know anything about the process of real estate investing other than that it worked for them.  Thank you.

[Richard Sinks]

@Gregory Pleshaw Hello! When you move to Tucson, you'll find there is a great real estate investors association (AZREIA) that puts out a lot of good information through classes and networking. You can get a preview at www.AZREIA.org

Have a safe journey to Tucson.

Take care,

Rick

[Patrick Allen]

Looking forward to adding you to the group soon, @Gregory Pleshaw! Feel free to reach out directly or in the forums if you run across questions or simply to network. As Richard mentioned, our local REIA is quite well established and provides not only a lot of high-quality content but hundreds of local investors to network with. An easy and effective way of plugging into the local market once you get to town.

Sent you a DM as well.

[Lance Hulsey]

We are sorry to see you leave Santa Cruz.  Our business is booming. Please feel free to use us and a resource back here if needed.

[Gregory Pleshaw]

@Richard Sinks - thanks for the information about the "Ree-Uh."  I have this word written all over my notes from the podcast, people say it and I I've been wondering what it stands for.  Now I know.  I've put a follow on you, will DM soon.

@Patrick Allen Yes thank you also.  I have a semi-systemized way of researching the broad scope of real estate terminology and issues at the moment, (mostly thanks to lots of podcast listening) but intend to go deeper into the issues of Arizona in general and Tucson in particular soon and I suspect AZREIA will go a long way towards that end.

@Lance Hulsey I "landed" in Santa Cruz in 2014 and met my wife soon afterwards and in a five year span have come to really enjoy the place.  As my wife owns her own house (which we'll rent during our absence) in Santa Cruz, there's a very good chance we'll be back.  (And as my family owns property in New Mexico, I have this grand vision of living of tri-location wander-life that includes Santa Fe, Tucson and Santa Cruz, perhaps in a cat-friendly RV ;-). I was *instantly* aware of the red hot real estate market on arrival (as soon as I tried to rent something lol) but hadn't considered it an option while there...but anything can happen, as my Dad likes to say.  I'll follow you also to keep an eye on the SC scene.  

:-) Thanks all.

[Bevla Reeves]

@Gregory Pleshaw Welcome!  AZ is a great place to invest and live! ;)

[Gregory Pleshaw]

@Bevla Reeves My travels to Arizona have been surprisingly limited even though I grew up in New Mexico, but I have spent a lot of time in Scottsdale galleries and have attended the annul Heard Museum show in downtown Phoenix on a number of occasions.  I am certainly looking forward to learning more as time goes on and thank you!