Fledgling Investor in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area

[Jaron Gin]

Hello BP!

I'm Jaron.  I'm currently saving money living at home with my parents, and I commute about an hour everyday to the Fort Worth area where I work as a Mechanical Engineer.  My journey in real estate investing started this year. 

(tl;dr at the end)

Long,boring, poorly written story (read if you want):

Living below my means has been a value that has been instilled in me from a young age, and in practicing this I've aggressively done what any money conscious college graduate with a job should do: pay off my student loans, and contribute to my Roth IRA. There were some obstacles, but through hard work I paid off over $75,000 in student debt in less than 5 years. All of a sudden I had more than half my income back. I was finally what people screamed about on a certain radio show that I've heard riding along in the car since I was in middle school. I was debt free, but thanks to the lessons learned from the hurdles I encountered getting to this point I understood that I still wasn't truly "free."

I was still shackled to a nonsensical and ephemeral job market with "entry level" positions requiring 5 years of experience and companies that fell apart either by internal politics or by the turn of the economy. While I currently have a job I like with meaningful work, I still wonder about how long it will really last and ultimately how long can I last? Outside of contributing to a Roth IRA, I didn't know the "what" and "where" of investing, so I talked to friends and family. I talked to my dad about index funds, commodities, and then he suggested single family rental homes. I somewhat understood index funds and commodities, but knew nothing about real estate. To expand on what I knew I reached out to financial advisers, among them some of the vaunted smartvestor pros from that same radio show I've heard all my life. While some gave objective and practical opinions, the impression I was given was that they were all trying to take advantage of me and push sales. They also seemed to change the subject when I asked about real estate. So to sate my curiosity, I scoured the internet.

Many questions posed throughout months of soul searching led me to asking this question: "If debt is so bad, why do the richest countries in the world have so much of it?"  Just like my dad did months ago, the dads had the answer.  Rich Dad Poor Dad answered my questions and turned everything I thought I knew about personal finance on its head.  "The rich leverage debt" and "assets put money into my pocket and liabilities take money out" are among the profound lessons I learned.  I wanted everlasting financial freedom and through youtube and other podcasts like the Graham Stephan Show and the Millennial Real Estate Investor Show, I eventually found my way here.  I read through the Ultimate Beginner's Guide and have transformed my commutes into learning opportunities through the podcast.  So begins my journey of the "what" and "where."

What and where:

From what I've learned so far and in considering a house a "liability" I find house hacking to be an elegant way to offset the liability of home ownership. While I may not have a fully fleshed out plan, I'm hoping that through networking with the community here my plan have a more concrete form.  My current goal is to save enough to make conservative investment on a multi-family property closer to work, preferably in at least class B neighborhood, and live there for free.  Right now I'm defining "conservative investment" as being a 20% down payment, however current prices of those houses seem to indicate that my savings may not be adequate and along with my general lack of knowledge/experience it may be more feasible for me to partner with someone more familiar with the locations and real estate in general.  I currently have a feed from an agent that I casually browse for the Euless, Hurst, Bedford, and North Richland Hills areas.

Thinking in terms of implementing the BRRRR method is it be reasonable to seek a partnership with a flipper to get at the ground level of a deal? I'm interested in creating an SLLC to manage my investments. Will it be advantageous to also form an SLLC for this first deal? When do I need to get a real estate attorney involved?

For stretch goals, I told one of those financial advisers that I wanted to be able to retire by 40.  They told me it was overly ambitious and unattainable.  After being able to work without needing to work (and proving them wrong) I think I'm interested in using some of the cash flow to incubate businesses.

tl;dr:  

A wise podcast once taught me that the postscript is the most read part of a letter.
I'm a newbie real estate investor interested in house hacking with the BRRRR method, and I wanted to introduce myself to the community and network with potential partners in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. While the above may not properly address everything I hope that this post will help generate that discussion.

[Brian Simpson]

Welcome to BP. I think you will find it easier to establish the first property in your name especially if you plant to live there and hack it. There would be a number of advantages and moving it to an LLC later is not to hard and something you will want to learn how to do especially after you have a couple of properties, I would additionally suggest a series LLC if you plan to grow in multiple areas and with multiple properties.

Goodluck and say hi if you see me around. Let me know if I can help.