Introduction - New Investor in Northern NJ

[Philip Watts]

Hello people,

I'm mostly making this post as an introduction and to put a flag in the dirt in terms of my intentions rather than a specific question. Of course I also want to meet good, smart, honest people and am very open to guidance and collaboration. 

I've live in North NJ (near the GWB) and have been slowly walking my money out of long equity positions over the last year, thinking quite a bit about alternative long-term investment strategies. I'm not talking huge money (I'm still going to be using leverage) but certainly enough to get started. I work in a totally unrelated field, I have most mornings and early afternoons free but have clients from 3pm to 8pm on week nights. This affords me a good bit of flexibility with my days. I have a degree in finance but don't work in the finance field. I'm minimally handy... I've refinished floors, tiled, painted, small electrical, minimal plumbing. I can figure most things out but I'm no master carpenter and my appetite for doing big projects myself is non-existent. I know my limitations.

I just finished the BP book on rental property investing and feel pretty good about that but still not totally sure it is or isn't the best strategy for me. I'm attracted to the long hold (given I suspect a market reckoning is immanent in the next year) and eventual large passive income potential but realize this has a longer/slower ramp money wise than some other strategies. Without going into details the end goal is significant stable wealth and solid passive income within 10 to 15 years. Who's isn't? 

I'm really just getting into things, learning how to look at properties, how to get data, what to pay the most attention to. My initial instinct is small multi-families (du,tri, quad-plexes) but there's not much inventory near me and what is available doesn't seem like the numbers add up. I've also looked at Philly, which is a few hours away, the initial prices are indeed much more reasonable and I have a niece there. I worry about owning remotely and all that comes with that, especially being so new to this. But I'm thinking I may need to look harder at it. 

I'm going to attend some local meetups but my hours being what they are, it's going to be a challenge as they're almost all weekday early evenings. And some seem a bit sketchy but I'll reserve judgement until I actually attend a few. I'm scheduling a banker visit to talk prequalification and parameters and a chat with a local RE agent I know but I'm not married to anyone. Looking forward to putting together a team. And looking forward to talking to all of you.

Thanks and cheer!

Philip