Anyone in Central Florida Tampa areas?

[Michael Goldsmith]

Hello Everyone,

Brand new to BiggerPockets and REI in general but very eager to meet like minded people and am hungry to learn and get into it. I'm relatively new to Florida, having moved here from the NY/NJ area about a year and a half ago. I'm in Spring Hill, about 45 min. north of Tampa. Since I've started to seriously look into REI, I've watched literally hundreds of youtube videos and am devouring all the reading material I can get my hands on. I think I have accumulated a fairly decent grasp on the basic concepts, but the more I learn, the more questions I have and the more holes I see in my knowledge set, which admittedly translates to a healthy dose of skepticism. In all the videos I've watched and the books I've read, I'm fairly consistently left with the feeling that there always something that they're not mentioning. The numbers always look good in the books and videos, and I know that good REI practices can generate a good cash flow and, over time, can lead to wealth and financial freedom, but I always have that nagging "but what about X" moment that doesn't get addressed. I would love to find someone experienced and relatively local that I can take to coffee and pick their brains a bit who can address my concerns on the nuts and bolts of things.

[Nathaniel Cherubini]

A few things for you: with your most pressing issue being where you currently live/rent, have you considered house hacking a small duplex? Possibly getting a larger 4 bedroom home with nice amenities and doing some form of STR with the extra bedrooms? Something to get you started with owning & land lording at the same time for starters to limit risk since you will need a primary regardless.

Secondly, I would carve out a desired investment market and do a deep dive analysis of the area. Cost of taxes, insurance, flood insurance, avg cost per square foot for homes, cost to build new per square foot, vacancy rates, rent rates per bedroom, school districts, crime rates, top ten job providers and dig into their trends (growing, expanding, contracting, single source, etc), find the type of investment properties you want to focus on and learn all about that demo. If it is 3/2's in a good school zone then you should look at everything that has sold in the past few years, rent rates, current "on the market times" to really start to know what a good 3/2 deal looks like vs a bad or average one. I usually spend 10-20 hours doing my market analysis before I feel comfortable putting in any offers.

Lastly, run conservative numbers. Make sure you are factoring in vacancy, repairs, maintenance, capital expenditures, property management, taxes, insurance (plus flood if needed)...all these may look like overkill when it takes a $600 monthly cashflow down to $150 but over the long term you will be able to hone your estimates as you experience turnover and normal repairs and such.

Take action! Best of luck!

Regards,

-Nate