Me and My wife's first rental income check! Philadelphia PA

[Arjay Vergara]

My wife and I just did our first deal in Philadelphia PA and got our first rent check on June 15, 2017! Ive been on the forums since ~December of 2015. Prior to that, I never thought of real estate as a viable way of investing mostly because I was uneducated on the topic and was only taught the typical, conventional methods (401k, bank savings, etc.).  When I stumbled upon a BP podcast and listened to the first few minutes, I was immediately hooked!  I approached my wife and she also was hesitant and skeptical but after listening to a few podcasts she was on board.  We did a lot of reading, listening to podcasts, and poking around the forums until we came up with our target strategy of Buying and Holding for passive income.  I built my own spreadsheets and methods for analyzing deals.  While we explored different markets (NJ, PA, Texas, North Carolina) we finally stuck with Philly, PA since we were familiar with the area and relatively close as we live in central NJ.  By April/May of 2016 we started looking for properties.  We put in an offer on one property in July and were super excited.  Unfortunately, it got rejected and so we were back to the drawing board analyzing and finding deals.  We finally found another potential property and put an offer in November and closed December 30th!!

My wife was also carrying our first child so our time to rehab the place was limited.  I would go on weekends sometimes by myself and sometimes with my father in law.  We hired a contractor to do more of the major work.  By February we were ready to list the property with our property manager.  We got tenants to sign a lease and they moved in starting in May.

It has been such an adventure and we learned so much through this whole process.  We are so thankful for everyone at Biggerpockets and are glad that a resource like this exists.  We look forward to doing more deals and networking with as many BP members as we can! =)  

Some Before/After Pics.  (Sorry not the best quality since I am grabbing from the property managers listing which is pretty low res.  we got close to the baby's due date so I wasnt able to go out there with my nice camera to snap good pics but hopefully this gives you an idea on the transformation)