All Forum Posts by: Austin Davis

Hello Jarret, fellow Tampa Bay native here. Just got started on this journey like youself, maybe we can connect sometime.

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone.  A few of you have expressed interest in my longer term vision.  From a business perspective, my strategy is to buy in up and coming neighborhood and ride the wave as property values and rents increase. From the neighborhood activist side of things, my plan is to use my influence as a land lord to imrove the neighborhood through cleaning up my own properties, encouraging other homeowners and land lords to clean up their own properties-lead by example. Additionally, I would be involved in other neighborhood improvement activities to improve the area. Ultimately I would love to either be running or heavily involved with a neighborhood nonrprofit while simultaneously owning several properties in the same area. Its an ambitious dream, but got to dream big to live big. 

This article explains alot of my vision:

https://rjohnthebad.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/whadd...

Along with Al Williamson's book Creating Wealth with Inner City Rentals: Success the Catalytic Landlord Way. 

The general idea is that I can do good and do well at the same time. I'm viewing real estate development as both a way of investment and a means to an end (improving cities and neighborhoods).

My name is Austin and I've a recent graduate from USF with Master in Public Administration and a concentration in Urban Planning. I'm pursuing a career in local government/ urban planning.

I've been toying around with the idea of real estate development for some time now, but I've finally decided to pull the trigger and really get serious about this after talking to different people. I'm interested in mostly property rentals, but would like to try  my hand a flipping, and eventually commercial development (4-22 units or mixed-used retail). I'm interested in real estate for three reasons. First I love the idea of passive income/financial freedom. Secondly, real estate (as I'll discuss in a second) seems like a good way for me to try my hand at being an entrepeneur. Third, given my background in urban planning and community development, I view real estate as another avenue of making communities a better place to live. I'm viewing this as city/community/neighborhood building by literally building the things I want to see in my city and neighborhood. This sentiment is actually coming from an emerging group of community-based nonprofits, architects, city planners, and community developers, who see the value of using real estate to development to better their communities by literally shaping and rebuilding them. In this fashion, I think that my background and training in urban planning and community development might give me an interesting view on real estate investing.

My immediate goals for real estate investment is to acquire a rental property by the end of 2015/ early 2016. I would then like to try and acquire another rental property soon after with the goal being getting two to three rental properties by the beginning of 2017. I'm looking for duplexes, triplexes, and quads and trying to focus my efforts in the Tampa Heights and Seminole Heights areas of Tampa.  As discussed earlier, my longer term goals are to possibly do house  flipping, rehabbing and renting  commercial properties/ retail , and possibly green field development. Ultimately I want to be a good member for the communities I invest in ; the way I see it the more I invest into my community the more it helps my bottom line. Help the neighborhood become a more happening place, raise property values and raise rents. I have a lot more detailed plan, PM me if you want to hear it more in detail, but I'll stop droning on about it for now!

Look forward to being apart of this great community.