Joshua Greenawalt welcome to this forum! Learning new things can seem overwhelming but you do it the same way you eat an elephant- one piece at a time. My wife and I only started in real estate less than a year ago, and have three cash-flowing rental properties in Stark county below you. We took advantage of low interest, 20 yr fixed rate mortgages to buy two of them turn-key from friends of ours who seem quite successful flipping houses and absorbing some into their holdings company to rent out. Those two properties we bought turn-key are single family two-story homes that were freshly remodeled and updated on the inside, and in decent shape outside. Even though I've remodeled homes and worked in construction since I was a teen, we still felt nervous at first that we were overpaying for the homes at $69,900 each, especially when we had them appraised to get a loan, and the one appraisal came in a bit lower than the asking price. After seriously enquiring into the matter, and being told it was a cranky appraiser who comes in low on all his properties, we decided to go ahead and purchase the property anyway, paying 20% down on each from a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) on the house we live in and have paid off. Things have gone quite well despite having several tenants break their lease agreements due to working in the oil industries and getting moved by their employers. We took this as a lesson learned, screen our tenants differently, and seem settled in with a one year lease in one and a 3 year in the other. We made some mistakes, though nothing serious, and I feel very good looking forward, and plan to keep buying more homes to either flip and sell or renovate and hold to rent. It really is about who you know and can build relationships with. There's bazillions of ways to make money in real estate and we are still developing our own strategies to fit our goals and desired lifestyle. I know this is an awfully long post but I wanted to encourage you that you can be successful if you want to. Don't be afraid to ask questions and do your research. Cheers!
