New investor in Torrance ca

[Alan Matthyssen]

Hello everyone I am Alan. I am completely new to real estate investing and excited to jump right in. I have been reading books so far to understand some basics and to force myself to learn the language of real estate. The only other exception is that i'm currently participating in a tax lien auction for Arizona. And that is about as far as experience goes haha!  

I am currently a cook in a restaurant and have been in the food and beverage industry for the bulk of my knowledge and experience. I have basically held every role and enjoy the service industry lifestyle. But as I am getting older and families start being built, my lifestyle choices make it hard to participate in family activities because of the dark side of the restaurant industry, "Work while others play". And don't get me wrong, I value to always offer a service that makes people happy and solves people's challenges, i don't know why. It just clicks. But it does take a toll on work life balance.. there must be another way?..

In comes the idea of real estate...

I would like to just shift the focus from making memorable moments with that industry with another to basically as what Zig Ziglar said along the lines of "If you help enough people get what they want, you can have everything you want.." 

I have the conservative numerical value that will allow me to be free to start enjoying more of family and more time to focus on other goals and aspirations. Now is just the action to make what is inside my head a reality!

So after attending those banquet room rented real estate venues, reading real estate and financial literacy books, and surfing youtube videos I have finally have come to BiggerPockets! So there is my little introduction! Like probably most individuals who start im not a person who has a lot of capital to begin with, hence looking into the sales in arizona. But that doesnt mean i can't learn how to figure out property values, source deals, and make attempts to negotiate with motivated sellers in the meantime. I have been just going around on my morning jogs and mindfully just looking around the neighborhoods looking at what houses that are for sale around in the neighborhood that are on Zillow and just trying to get a "feel" of what that value property looks like. I have been doing "what I believe" is finding out the comps in the neighborhood using an avg. sq ft method. Which leads me to this point in my adventure..

I hope this is not a mentor solicitation, and if it is I apologize and i'll take it down, but is there anyone in the south bay area IE: Torrance, Redondo Beach, Lomita, Harbor City that are Investors, Wholesalers, RE Agents that maybe be able to help me find out these numbers? If possible may I shadow and see how you get to your numbers given with certain information and cross reference to my numbers to see if I am doing it right? My other option that I have thought of, and that is to obtain a RE license and be an agent so that I may understand what i'm looking at and learn it that way.

Thank you all for taking the time and reading my story and introduction! If there is any way that I may be able to serve you please let me know and it will be my pleasure to do so! Hope to hear and learn from all of you.

-Alan

[Ben Steelman]

Hey Alan. I'm a native Kansas Citian and have enjoyed investing in Kansas City for over 15 years. I started with SFR's but now my focus is in the Multifamily space. Kansas City is a fantastic market and would love to connect further if you have some interest in the KC market. Cheers!