New and eager investor looking for advice~

[Ellette Craddock]

Hi Bigger pockets forum!

Nice to meet everyone, my name is Ellette. I am 28 years old, work in the film industry, and currently trying to figure out an investment strategy that will work best with my lifestyle. My goal is to have properties run by property managers (hopefully without intense rates) - whether turn key real estate, multifamily homes, or really anything that would bring the most passive income overtime while being primarily hands off.

I am currently struggling to take the first step because I am never in one location at a time. Although I am based in Los Angeles, I work in either Atlanta or the UK between 2 - 10 months at a time.  It's made it hard to network/ have time to look at places in real life, which is why I believe being mostly hands off is crucial. 

I would love to hear what anyone else would do if they were in my position? If there are any other real estate investment strategies, or even opportunities to partner or shadow someone with more experience. Please let me know, I am excited to hear back! I LOVE the BP podcasts and I look forward to connecting. Thank you! 

[Ellette Craddock]

Quote from @Brenden Mitchum:

Hey @Ellette Craddock, welcome to the BP community!

The struggle is real! Investing in real estate with a busy job that has you traveling frequently is tough because you're unable to really spend time in a market. Essentially, you will have to treat investing like most out of state investors do. You'll need to build a strong team in your chosen market and spend a lot of time analyzing deals and understanding that market. You do have a advantage over other OOS investors though in that you spend some of your year in a great market, here in Atlanta. It might make sense for you to start out with some kind of rental that you could stay at while here in Atlanta and rent out to colleagues while you're away. Maybe just focus on rental housing for folks in the film industry since this is a tenant base that you understand.

Keep in mind capital requirements. A second home loan is at least 10% down (plus another 2-3% for closing costs), just to get you into the property. You might be able to get a primary residence loan for as low as 3% (plus closing costs) if you convince the lender you're living there most of the year, but I wouldn't count on this. Worse case scenario, you're looking at 20% down (plus closing costs) for an investor conventional loan product or something similar. This is likely how you will have to purchase property after the first one. 

There are more creative ways to get into property here in Atlanta and other markets but many of these are less passive or have higher capital requirements. 

Hope this helps a bit though! Please, feel free to reach out anytime if you have other questions or just want to chat!

Hi Brenden! Nice to meet you and thank you so much for your response! I have thought about this before in terms of different percentages for a first time home buyer/ renting out to colleagues. I also recently sent in my loan application to see how much I could get pre approved. My borrowing power was less than I hoped because they had to use my 2020 tax return (which was a less busy year for me).

I see you are in atlanta! I may reach out to you personally just to hear more about the less passive or higher capital requirement ideas! Regardless, thank you so much for your help!