Newbie = Wants to know about Investing In NC

[Sam Rane]

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to this forum and new to investing. a little bit about me, i'm 38 years old male married no kids, I currently live in NC specifically in Raleigh area, and i am looking at diving into NC housing market but i'm not sure where to start exactly. I wanted to know which option would be best for someone like me "a Newbie" and how to actually get started in Real Estate? Should i get a Single Family House (3 bed 2 bath) as a 1st property and rent it out OR get a Duplex ? I'm looking for cash flow and gradual appreciation or maybe mix of the two. My goal is to start small like invest into home/s between 80k-100k and grow my portfolio...

Some of the questions i have are:

1. is the NC real estate market promising ?

2. Is it risky/or safe to jump into a duplex as a first property ? Or a SFH would be a best option?

3. Where in NC should i start looking for houses under 100k ? Name of city/or Town?

4. Is it easy to rent the property in NC?

5. Do i need to own an LLC ?

6. Do i need to hire a PM to handle the property ?

Any comments/help is appreciate it, thank you all!

Sam

[Jason E. Smith]

Sam,

Welcome to BP and real estate investing. I’ll give my free advice to your questions:

1. is the NC real estate market promising ? For the most part, yes. I would be cautious about buying what appears to be deals in small towns that have one or two major employers because in the event those employer(s) leave who will your tenants work for and how far will they have to travel for work.

2. Is it risky/or safe to jump into a duplex as a first property ? Or a SFH would be a best option? Depends on your goals. SF has more buyers if you're wanting to sell down the road, but a duplex offers an offset to expenses when one tenant leaves. So there's pros and cons to each.

3. Where in NC should i start looking for houses under 100k ? Name of city/or Town? Eh, I think you’re making a mistake in focusing on low price. You need to consider who your tenant will be. You may find something for say $90k in a rural location that rents for $700 a month. But that’s a much different tenant that say something that rents for $1,500 a month in a better location. Just think about what life will be like with each tenant in your portfolio.

4. Is it easy to rent the property in NC? Any property will rent, it’s just at what price.

5. Do i need to own an LLC ? No, if you try and buy in an LLC you'll have to use commercial lending which are different terms and conditions.

6. Do i need to hire a PM to handle the property ? Again, depends on your goals. Some people like self managing and they want a dozen or two houses to pay for their retirement. That’s one strategy. Some people want to scale and have hundreds of houses or they don’t want to deal with day to day operations so they use a PM. Me personally, I’ve never self managed, I’ve always allowed professional managers to take care of the properties. I think if you buy a cheap house and you self manager you’ll have a higher risk of creating headaches, but that’s just my opinion.