Buy and Hold in Florida while active duty USMC

[Chris Parsons]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $138,000

Bought this when wife was temporarily stationed there with the intention of keeping as a rental.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

This was our first true investment property. Wife and I were still active duty USMC at the time and knew that we were going to start buying rentals. This was our first opportunity.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

It was new construction so we knew that it would have good longevity for us.

How did you finance this deal?

VA financing

What was the outcome?

We've had it for 15 years now and are going to be selling this year to consolidate to our forever home state of Ohio. We will 1031 this into a local rental.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

We bought in 2006 as virgin investors with no idea that we were just a couple years from the market bust. We weren't necessarily affected by the bust because this was a longgggg-term investment for us so we weren't concerned about resale value at that time.