New Real Estate Investor

[Luke Valentine Johnson]

Hello Bigger Pockets Forum. This is my first time posting. I'm currently on active duty in the Marine Corps, and one day my Staff Sergeant suggested that I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. 6 months and many books later, I've decided I want to start investing in real estate. I transition from active duty to veteran on September 20, 2020. My current plan is to move to Madison, WI with my wife and attend college full time. We have an idea of how we want to invest, but we don't have all the details. Our hope is to purchase a small multi-family home to house hack using the VA home loan. Once able, we plan to refinance the VA loan into a traditional loan with the equity we've built over the span of 1 year. We hope to repeat this process 2 or 3 times. Once we've acquired 3 or 4 small multi family homes, we would like to sell them all at the same time to give us the capital we need to use as a down payment on an apartment complex. I post this hoping to receive feedback and to make connections with people in the Madison, WI. Thank you.

[Jon Lallande]

Hey Luke! 

Thank you for your service and congrats on getting started! A few things I would consider; some lenders do not use income from your GI Bill as qualifying income. I would reach out to a few different lenders as soon as possible to let them know you're plan and see if you can find a lender that will allow that. If your wife is working and her job transfers to WI then you'll be able to use her income to qualify. Since you have a few months until you are out, I would spend this time to really focus on saving cash and build your credit if you have any discrepancies. You'll be required to have cash reserves to qualify for a loan. The more you focus on these things now, the better prepared you will be when you get out and start looking for property! Good luck!