Newbie from Long Beach, CA

[James Marin]

Hello everyone! I'm very excited to join this community as I have been surfing various forums for over 15 years and they have always been some of the most helpful avenues I've taken. I'm excited to learn and possibly build relationships with some of you. 

A few things about me. I'm 29 years old, I live in Long Beach, California, and I work in the film industry here in Hollywood as a camera operator. As I read Brandon Turner's book on Rental Property Investing, I am constantly reminded about how I do NOT want to create a job for myself within the world of real estate. Why? Because I LOVE my job. I have the best job in the world, and when I'm not shooting things with explosions, action sequences, and car commercials, I want to make more time to go rock climbing, and scuba diving, while making passive income through real estate to spend more time with my wonderful family, and my amazing girlfriend. 

I'm very new, as in I'm only on page 131 of Brandon's book, and that's my current extent of my real estate knowledge. However, from what I have come to gather, here are the things I am interested in doing, but not tied down to completely.

1) Single Family, and Multi-unit properties

2) Buying from a wholesaler who can essentially sell me a property with all the details worked out and just needs to be rehabbed, that way I can just be the "project manager" in my off days, and simply oversee that the rehab goes well and the make a profit.

3) I want to mostly get into rental property investing as I would not like to create a job for myself. I would like to be as hands-off as possible and simply make real estate a way for me to create passive income for myself

4) I would like to invest in properties within Southern California, although it is expensive I believe I can find deals here in Long Beach, Riverside, Joshua Tree, Palms springs, and in general places outside of Los Angeles and Orange County

5) Also open to investing out of state in places like Texas (where my parents live and I can partner with my father), Las Vegas (because its only a 4 hour drive and can make the drive when I need to), and Pennsylvania (where my girlfriends parents live and can possibly partner with them on those properties)

I also want real estate to help me accomplish a few BIG goals in life. 

1) I want to buy a home for myself here in Los Angeles so I can continue to conduct business here in hollywood. However homes are extremely expensive and do not foresee myself buying the type of property I want through my current income alone.

2) Later in life I want to take the money that I make through real estate and make the jump to being an executive producer, which is the initial investor for a major motion picture. My current co-workers are extremely talented people and I would love to invest in their future movies and continue to be in a creative part of the business. 

3) I want to buy a plot of land in Joshua Tree, CA (which is an international mecca for rock climbing) and with a friend who is an architect , create an amazing vacation rental property for visitors that come in for music festivals, family vacations, climbing trips, and the sort. I also want to double it as a film and photography location that I can market to my network who can rent it out when its not being used as a vacation property.

I would love to meet anyone in the Southern California area who is willing to share their time and knowledge with me (coffee or lunch on me!). I also am currently spending the rest of the year learning as much as I can about Real Estate, and am continuing to save money to buy my first property (Or two, or three, by next year). I love that Real Estate is a relationship based business as the film industry is very much the same. Its all about who you know, and who knows you, and how you can provide value to each other. 

Best,

James Marin