Semi-Newbie in Virginia :-)

[Maureen Hannan]

Hi All,

Warning--this ended up being LONG. Hard to distill my real estate experiences in just a paragraph...and I really do want/need to connect with others who may identify with my situation and location.

I'm Maureen, and I live (and invest) in Purcellville, Virginia, a small Washington, DC, exurb in western Loudoun County.

I sort of stumbled into real estate in 2009, when I went through a divorce after a 20-year marriage. My ex-husband and I had built up some assets together--and he also bought me out of the home we had shared. So I was starting over with money to invest and the economy in a pretty tumultuous state. I decided to stay far away from the stock market--and instead to buy townhouses in my town. My reasoning? Because my own experience of trying to rent a place close to my ex's house had been pretty difficult, I knew there was a big demand for small, affordable places that could serve families going through transitions like separation and divorce.

I bought three town homes at different levels of quality. One luxury, one in the middle, and one teeny-weeny very basic 2-level place. Because I used cash and dealt with motivated sellers, I got good purchase prices on each. I learned a lot from my years of being a landlord. One of the biggest lessons I learned was that it's really hard to be a landlord in a small town, when personal relationships easily overlap with landlord-tenant relationships.

I did try using a local property management service for a year--with unsatisfying results. They took the stance that they were doing me a favor, since they don't like to deal with small investors...and each month it took them about 3 weeks to process the tenant's check. They also hired out handymen and contractors who were quite expensive--and twice ignored my instructions to go through home warranty providers for service to covered systems and appliances. So I fired them and went it alone, and I did a good job of managing the properties and communicating with my tenants.

Recently I decided to sell all three properties. The townhouse market was heating up here, and buyers ended up competing in their bids. I got good offers on each--even factoring in realtor commissions. I didn't really know what I would do with the proceeds, but I decided to start with a clean slate and give myself a much better education this time around.

I like real estate, and I want to do more investing. This time, I want to use financing to boost my return. And while I want to continue investing in residential real estate, I've identified a town other than the one I live in (Winchester, VA) to be my focus. It's a place I know well--and it's growing quickly with a mix of young families, retirees, university faculty, and students. AND, just as importantly, it's a half hour away, so no more uncomfortable mix of personal and business. Or tenants taping the rent check to my door because they decided why waste money on a stamp? Or being badmouthed to friends as an animal-hater because I reminded the tenant the lease prohibited her from bringing the incontinent, aging family dog from the ex's house to mine. And the list goes on....

I hope to learn from the people in this community how best to approach financing, how to find the right property manager, how to assemble a handyman/contractor team I trust, and how to (possibly) partner with other investors in my area.

I'm very glad to be here and look forward to the learning and the connecting.

Maureen