New to the area. Wife and I are looking to buy our first house.

[Justin Jones]

My wife and I are looking to buy our first house and our first investment property this year (so 2 properties). Life has been crazy busy this year. I'm working full time and going to college at night and my wife is working full time. We're currently renting and our lease is up in October. From what I'm hearing and seeing the market is a crazy sellers market right now. At the moment we're just working on saving up capital. We're going to use the VA loan for our home. I would like to get a place that needs some work and that could potentially have a portion sectioned off for short term rentals (or long term... still reading about the STR laws in Virginia Beach). We're pretty set on buying a place in VB. For our investment property we're working on learning the area but we're open to VB as well as Chesapeake, Suffolk, and Norfolk. Looking to network with other investors and learn what the market is like around here. We've tried to go see a few houses but they've sold the first day of being on the market.

As I said, at the moment we're just working on saving up capital and learning the area. We're interested in cash flowing properties above everything else. Our plan is to narrow down our criteria as we continue to look and learn the area. For our investment property I'm honestly considering setting some pretty strict criteria that will guarantee good cash flow and then just making offers on places that meet those criteria/ making low offers without seeing the properties. In the event an offer gets accepted we will have the ability to back out upon inspection anyways. It seems like the only way to get deals right now with how fast offers are getting accepted. Plus a lot less time on our end will be spent physically going to look at houses.

Are there any meetups/ virtual meetups for the hampton roads area? Looking forward to networking with investors/agents/managers/etc. in the area!

[Jason Gilmore]

Do yourself a favor and buy your rental first. Live in it for 2 years with a zero% down VA loan. Buy your personal home second if you can use your VA again for zero down or 3.5% down. If you buy your primary home first with your VA loan you will have to put down 20% on your rental property. This will dramatically limit the amount you can spend by driving the down payment up to $60k for a 300k house. If you play your cards right you could have those same houses for between zero and 3.5% on one. Also VA doesn't have PMI insurance so you'll save an additional $200 a month on your payment. Do not buy your dream house and then look for a rental!!! You'll save lots of time and money by simply reversing your priorities.