New investor in sunny Los Angeles!

[Gregg Yamauchi]

Greetings BP!

I've been following the BP blog and listening to the BP Podcast (which is absolutely fantastic!) for some time now, and think it's finally time to get involved on the forums.

I am currently working full time for a real estate investment fund, where we focus on acquiring distressed commercial real estate across the US and Europe. While I have obtained a wealth of knowledge and experience in my job, I have always had the dream of investing in real estate on my own. I am focused on cash-flowing investments, and have set a goal to close my first deal sometime in 2014.

As many of my fellow Los Angeles based investors know, LA is a great city to live in, but a tough place to invest. With high prices and low yields, my search for good, cash-flowing deals has come up dry. Because of this, I am now looking at cities outside of LA and even out of state. What do y'all think of making your first investment out of state?

I am very excited to get involved on the forums, learn from experienced investors, share information and maybe even find a new mentor. If anyone ever has any questions about distressed commercial real estate investing, I'd be happy to help.

Cheers!
Gregg

[Alex H.]

Hi Gregg Yamauchi. Welcome. This has been a great place to learn and interact.

We also have invested out of Cali...the first thing I learned from other investors was to have all my ducks in a row and a great team in place BEFORE I made my first out of state purchase - and that was an invaluable lesson. Funny, I ended up buying property in Ohio from another investor who lives out of state and was having trouble managing the properties long distance. So, from day 1 I realized that having the appropriate people in place, people I had already built a business relationship with and that I trust to handle my business, it is a workable situation. But, with that said, I am very interested to see how much eaiser it will be once I get some MFRs under my belt here in my home state. :)

I look forward to seeing your posts and wish you all the best out there.

Mehran Kamari - That was a great podcast!