New Investor Southern California with Long Distance Plans

[Christopher Beloud]

Hello!

I am a Los Angeles, CA native and have been listening to the bigger pockets podcast for over a year now.

I work as a firefighter and love my job, but don't see myself staying in this career until I am 57 years old to receive the full benefit of the pension offered. There are many reasons and downsides to this amazing career that I have taken into consideration as to why I would be leaving early. 
I look to generate income from real estate investments so that eventually I can retire early, and move onto other ventures in this life.

My wife and I have many dreams and one desire is to move out of California someday, although we are not exactly sure where. We desire to spend more time together as my current job requires 48-96 hour shifts which means I am not home completely.  I am a Christian who would like to have more time available to serve in church ministry as well as travel with my wife on missions trips.

The current plan is the secure an FHA loan with %3.5 down on a duplex, triplex or quadplex and House Hack. This would be ideally somewhere within the southern CA region within 1.5 hours from my work. I want this to be a rehab property so that I can use the BRRRR method. I would then take the equity from this property and use it to Long Distance BRRRR properties. So far this is the niche I've figured would be the best way for me to get started in real estate investing.

We are currently paying down some debts from travels we took this year and will start saving heavily, for roughly 35-45k for a down-payment.  The properties we are looking at in CA range anywhere from 550k - 1.2m 

I look forward to see what this future holds and to become a more active member of this wonderful community of investors.  

Thank You!

[KJ L.]

Hi Chris, my husband and I did the FHA 3.5% down to house hack a duplex in South LA (prices are reasonable, zoning is favorable and there is a lot of rejuvenation occurring). We purchased at $400k in 2017 and renovated our property which appraised at $625k last month. We recently took out a HELOC on the property and using it to purchase out of state properties/invest in other RE projects. Ultimately we were able to move our rent payments to a mortgage and gain some equity and tax benefits. Hopefully this helps.