Newbie Investor - Seattle, WA

[Jack Hemion]

Hey everyone! I'm Jack, a newbie investor from Seattle, WA that's been on Biggerpockets as a lurker for about six months or so. Although I've done a fair bit of reading, I haven't actually gotten into any sort of deal since my wife and I have been closing on our own primary home, making it somewhat difficult to get a credit check done. With that out of the way, I'm itching to get started!

A little about me: I'm in a full time tech job, and my wife is a nurse, with a short term goal of offsetting her income so at least one of us can comfortably raise kids when we get them. To do this, I'm looking at a few ways of investing:

1. Turnkeys. My wife and I both hold full time jobs, and I'm not sure we can devote high amounts of time to a real estate business. I know turnkeys are decent on the cash flow side, but pretty weak on getting any sort of equity. I'm also pretty wary of finding a good out of state provider, and while I've done research, I've still got some paranoia.  Any suggestions on getting around that?

2. Syndication/Crowdfunding. As it turns out, I'm an accredited investor, and I've seen some deals on places like Crowdstreet that seem pretty attractive. Does anyone have a good comparison or experience doing this vs. turnkey?

3. BRRRR. Maybe we just have to bite the bullet. Because we're in Seattle, chances are we'd have to go out of state, significantly increasing the amount of effort we have to put in. I think I'd like to partner with someone if we go this route to help mitigate some of that risk.

Thanks everyone for your advice, I'm looking forward to learning!

[Michael Haas]

@Jack Hemion - family is a great motivation to start investing! My wife just quit her job so that she can manage our 6 Seattle area properties and spend more time with our 9 month old. We're incredibly blessed that our properties have given her the flexibility to make that leap.

I wouldn't rule out Seattle, especially for a BRRRR or House-hack. I think you'll be a much better investor after some hands on experience, and I think the place to get hands on experience would be here, not with an out of state investment. We're getting some great returns in Seattle - a lot of the folks complaining about the Seattle area not cash-flowing are back-seat critics without any skin in the game.