NYC Resident | Bought My First Property in CT

[Ben Rutkevitz]

Dear Bigger Pockets Community, 

Thank you! Thank you all very much for all the help and support. Thank you for all the blog posts, forum threads and all the great people I met at the meetups. 

After years of researching real estate investing, I finally did it! I pulled the trigger and bought my first property. 

The feeling is great! I went from being on the sidelines to actually being a real estate investor. 

The story:

I met my JV partner at a local real estate meetup in April 2015. He had put a property under contract in Stratford, CT for $67,000. He found a hard money lender who was offering to lend funds for the purchase and rehab as long as the borrower could bring $30,000 to the deal. My JV partner had some of the funds but not all.

We discussed the details of the deal at the meetup and I liked what I heard. More importantly, I found my future JV partner very trustworthy.

Two days later I went to see the property for myself. 

It is a single family home, 1100 SF, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath that needed about $30k in repairs. Appraiser stated that the after repair value of the home was $185k. My thoughts were that there seemed to be enough room in this deal that even with me making newbie mistakes, I would not lose my pants. 

My partner also had a local mentor who recommended us a contractor who is very experienced in investor rehabs. We are in week 4 of the rehab process and things are going well and staying within budget. I have been blogging about the experience (link in my signature).

This community, website and forum gave me the base knowledge to have enough confidence to move forward and do my first deal. 

I am so inspired to explore this path of real estate investments and am actively looking for my next transaction. 

I would be happy to answer any and all questions you all may have.

With my deepest gratitude, Ben