Rookie Prospective SFR Investor

[Matthew Middleton]

Good afternoon all,

My name is Matt. (I apologize for the lengthy post.) A couple years ago, I was in a crappy call center job(I now work for AmEx) with no sense of what I wanted to do with my future. I was visiting my Aunt and Uncle in Plano, Tx that summer, and the conversation came up about my terrible job. My Aunt asked me if I would be interested in doing what my uncle does, which is apartment syndication. Seeing the lavish lifestyle they lived, I was intrigued, but of course my first response was, "Where am I going to get the money he uses to purchase these $30 million properties?" She mentioned that he uses OPM. Before my wife and I headed back home to Las Vegas, my uncle gave us a book: Rich Dad Poor Dad. Of course. Ha. Like many others, that book completely changed my mindset on how I look at creating income. I then read 2 more Kiyosaki books and a few more mindset and real estate books. As one of his students, my uncle recommended we attend Brad Sumrok's "Rat-Race to Retirement" seminar in Dallas. We attended. After hearing this phrase multiple times,"I was able to quit my 6 figure job..." I realized apartment syndication is not something you just jump into without some serious capitol to get started. Now, my wife and I are planning to begin our journey with SFR investing. We've decided to list our current home for sale next week as it's appreciated significantly in the 3 years we've been there and it's a ton of wasted space. We will use some of the profit to pay down bad debt and the rest we will save for investing next year. During the next 12-14 months, I'll be focusing on my education, networking, and saving. Because our ultimate goal is apartment syndication, I am interested, not so much in monthly cash-flow right now, but building equity in multiple single family homes over the next 5-7 years so that we may one day sell them and have enough to get into large multi-family. My biggest concern after all the reading I've been doing is, who do you trust? There seems to be so many people out there that just want to take your money and that worries me a bit. This may be a terrible idea, but that's why I'm here. I'm looking for some guidance/feedback. After some brainstorming my current plan is: Next year we're going to purchase another less expensive home to live in(FHA), and when we're ready, we will purchase our first SFR to rent out that year. By next summer, we'll have around $30k-$40k to get started. I know it's not much, but you have to start somewhere right?

I appreciate any and all feedback, and I thank you.

Matt