A newbie investor's first deal!

[Blake Williams]

Hey everyone, I meant to post this a while ago but I've been pretty busy lately. 

I am 25 and at the beginning of this year I decided I was going to move out of my parents house.  I've also been thinking about getting into real estate investing for years so I thought this would be a good opportunity! 

Even though I've read the forums and books and listened to podcasts etc...  I don't think anything could have really gotten me ready for this year! 

I started by researching towns near where I lived and finding properties in those towns through various sources ranging from the mls to Craigslist and realtor.com.

Any time I came across a property I was even a little interested in I would drive out to it and look at the house (outside because I didn't have an agent at first) and park my car somewhere and walk all around the neighborhood to try and get a feel for it.  Sometimes I even spoke to the people around town and asked them their opinions of the area. 

I learned about fha here on bigger pockets and also learned about investment clubs so I did some research and came across ctreia which is the nearest club to me.  A few meetings with the ria and I learned about chfa a program similar to fha but specific to Connecticut.  That program covers your down-payment and closing costs up to a point and can be used together with fha. 

Now I had a strategy! 

After months of this process I came across a property in the city nearest to me and began to persue it! 

This was a two family house and the seller initially intended to live there the rest of his life.  How work situation changed however and he found himself having to move out of state. 

The house is about 100 years old, but he had renovated everything about it straight down to the studs. 

The house also sat unsold for a while, so he ended up reducing the price by $10,000 to about $98,000.

Actually going through a traditional mortgage company was SO MUCH more off a hassle than I expected and there were so many issues I honestly don't think I want to list them all! 

Eventually I managed to make my way through that process with a lot of help from my attorney and real estate agent and I ended up buying the property! 

The building is a two family home and I inherited a tenant who so far seems to keep to herself and pays on time.  I'm very optimistic about the entire situation. 

Right now I am not making money on the property, but I knew that would be the case going into this and have ideas for how it can be improved. 

My inspector recommended I turn the basement into a studio apartment and rent that out as well.  Also, when I move out obviously I can rent my unit too.  

In the mean time the rent covers the lion's share of the mortgage payment and I only have to worry about utilities. 

Either way, I set out to purchase my first property before the end of the year and now I've done that!  I'm looking forward to what the future brings!