Northern Iowa Noob!

[Christopher Derr]

Greetings BP!!!

My name is Christopher Derr, and I am from Northern Iowa.

A little about me and my real estate back ground. I joined the Marine Corps straight out of high school in 2002 and was almost immediately deployed to Iraq for 2 tours. After coming back home I would spend a lot of nights with my wife watching HGTV just chilling on the couch. Property Virgins, Flip this house, ect. ect. It really got me in the mood to get into real estate. I used the Marine Corps education program to pay for me to take a property management course, home inspection course and real estate appraisal course from Allied. After the Marine Corps I moved back to Iowa in 2006 and bought a house, then went to a technical college for construction technology my goal was to flip homes, however I got employed as a Wind Turbine Technician so I switch my major to Banking and Finance then on to Management to align with my current job.

In 2008 I bought a house with my brother (silently) so he could finance it under a traditional owner occupant loan but the 2 people that rented with him made our monthly payment. Once he moved instead of keeping it we decided to sell it...(Which I regret now).

In 2011 We moved and built our dream house and put our old primary residence on the Market but couldn't move it in a dying town. I rented it to another guy that I worked with up until this month when he is moving out. I have already signed a lease with a new Tenant that moves in next month and the house is now off the Market as I have decided to get into buy and hold real estate.

I found BP through google searches for trying to figure out how to set up our now first true rental in an L.L.C. (which I am still trying to figure out).

My Short term goal is to get an L.L.C set up with my current rental and hopefully another SFH rental in the next year. Long term is to have 2-3K+ positive cash flow by the time my first child heads off to college in 10 years.

I look forward to learning, and hopefully limiting my mistakes through this forum. I am glad I found it before we purchased our second rental property and hope to use the knowledge I gain to make a solid investment.

I can already tell I made a mistake in the amount of rent I asked for in our current rental as I had 10 calls in the first 2 days after posting it. I also do not think I properly screened tenants and rushed to sign a lease when I thought I would be sitting with a vacant home. (TIME TO LEARN)

"If it doesn't challenge you, It doesn't change you!"

ASK ME ANYTHING!