Brand new to the game. Ready to jump in and get that cash flow!

[Michael Milillo]

Hello, community! Brandon told me to introduce myself here, so if anybody cares about my story, here it is, LOL. My name is Michael Milillo and I stumbled across this forum when I read "The Book On Rental Property Investing" I’m 45 years old and living in Dutchess County, NY. In the Poughkeepsie area. I have excellent credit, almost 800 and a great income from employment with fantastic debt to income ratio. All I have is a car loan. No student loans and very minimal credit card debt which is on a zero percent with a planned payoff before it jumps up. Long story short, some friends of mine were looking to get a group of investors together to purchase a block of one bedroom units in the Houston, TX area for a buy and hold renting situation. That move is currently on the back burner and in the meantime I decided to read and listen to every piece of information I could get my hands on while I waited. I started with "The Book On Rental Property Investing" and it's been a tidal wave of knowledge ever since. I found that book based on Amazon reviews and I'm so lucky I did. That led me to the podcast and I have since listened to over 100 episodes. The benefit of commuting two hours a day and being able to listen to my earbuds while at my full time job. I also read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", "Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant" which was life changing and "Think and Grow Rich". I'm currently reading "The House Hacking Strategy", "The Richest Man in Babylon and even more podcasts. Checked out my first webinar last week. Safe to say that I’m a fan, hahaha

So now after reading so much info I decided that my best first course of action would be to stop paying rent and doing a house hack with a 2-4 family house in my area. Problem is my area isn't really known for multi family units and I'm further restricted by needing to be in my son's middle school footprint. Actually had a solid choice with a really nice ROI lined up this week, but it went in 6 days with multiple offers and we didn't even get a chance to make an offer before they closed it down. Place was 269K with two units. The one that has a tenant that wanted to stay is getting $1800 and once mortgage, taxes and insurance was paid I would only be $300-$400 out of pocket to live there. In perspective I'm currently payin $1600 in rent with my lease expiring end of June and an increase looming. The property even had a 3 car detached garage which I was going to attempt to rent out to get me to cash flow even with my living expenses being free. So, it'a a learning process and with the knowledge I acquired from Bigger Pockets and their recommended books I saw the potential in this listing, too bad I wasn't able to pull the trigger. The selling agent slept on us and didn't get back to us with the info we requested and then it was too late. My agent is pissed, but it is what it is. If this place was available, perhaps more opportunites will arise.

After pulling off a house hack and getting that rolling my plan for next year is to purchase an a true investment property to rent out to get cash flow positive by end of next year. Long term goal is to get a bunch of income generating properties and build an empire :)

Some more background if anybody is actually still reading…..I have an amazing union job that I love and don’t plan on leaving. Ten more years and I can retire from there with full pension buy out at age 55. Hopefully in those 10 years I’ll be rocking and rolling with properties and be set for life. That’s the plan anyway

So if there is any way I can be of assistence or if anybody is looking for people to work with in my area, I’m open to any and all suggestions. Feel free to contact me anytime. Mostly I’m just here to learn as much as possible!