Hello Everyone! New Member to BP!

[Justin Allison]

Hi everyone,

My wife and I stumbled into real estate investing in 2018. We decided to buy a multi family property in Providence, RI since we plan to be here for at least a couple of years (hopefully more but who knows what the future may bring). I’m originally from the South so I’m used to a lower cost of living. One of my biggest motivators for getting started in real estate was having to pay a higher amount for rent than in the past (and other higher cost of living expenses) after moving to the northeast. Plus, we talked about purchasing property while living in the South but never put the plans into action.

Buying our first property was a challenge but finding tenants was even harder because of timing...we were planning our wedding around the same time of purchasing the property. After the smoke cleared from the wedding, we were able to get some wonderful tenants to live in one of the units. We currently live in the other unit but plan to rent the unit out if we ever move.

Moving forward, we are looking to buy and hold a few properties which produce a good enough cash flow so that we can become financially independent and spend more time with people who mean a lot to us. Although we have started, we understand that we still have a lot of work to do in order to accomplish our goal.

We both work full-time so we are working on creating a plan and learning all that we can about real estate investing. I look forward to learning from everyone and hopefully making some connections!

[Anthony Thompson]

@Justin Allison you've come to the right place! There's a small but active group of Rhode Islanders here who will be happy to help you with any questions you might have :)

I also typically recommend people attend local RE investor groups such as RIREIG which meets monthly in Warwick and Black Diamond REI which meets monthly alternating between Worcester MA and Burlington MA.

I know a lot of local investors who also work full time, and it can be a grind, but the nice thing is, banks love to see that W-2 income so it should be easier to build up (though harder to juggle everything, of course :)

If you haven't already seen it, I do recommend the Bigger Pockets Ultimate Beginners Guide and of course, the entertaining & informative BP podcasts.