New to Houston and REI

[Troy Egar]

Hello everyone! Hope you're enjoying the weekend and a great turnaround for the Astros in the World Series.

My name is Troy and I recently moved down to Houston from the Northeast after graduating college back in May. I'm currently renting an apartment in the Heights and am looking to enter the Houston real estate market. Preferably within the next year or so. My current goal is to start with a duplex and to live in one of the units while renting out the other. So far I've read 'The Book on Rental Property Investing' and some light readings on the forum but there is still so much to learn. 

It would be great to meet up and network if anyone is looking to do so. I'm trying to learn as much as possible and am willing to buy the first few rounds of drinks to do so or help out where I can! 

I also saw there are a few meet-up groups around Houston - are any of them better than others for the area of investing I'm interested in?

Thank you for reading my post and can't wait to become more involved with this great community!

[Chris Hopper]

Get out to all the networking events and meet people.  Then pull the trigger.  Probably not a popular opinion, but I'll never understand why people say they want to get into real estate within the next year or so.  Why not right now?  It's not hard to buy a house.  Especially for a rental.  It boils down to simple math - what can I buy it for, what will my mortgage payment be, what will the rents be?  If you can live with the answers to all those questions, buy it.  Pretty simple.  People want to analyze things to death and never do anything.  I'll never understand it.  Not bashing you, I just don't understand the logic.  If you're ready to get into real estate, then do it now, why wait?  If you can't find deals yourself, get with an agent and/or wholesaler and have them find you deals.  Rentals are super easy and forgiving.  Who cares if you make a mistake, you're not flipping it so you can ride out the mistake and make it up.  All you need to have is the permanent financing and you're all set.  Now go buy something!  :)