All Forum Posts by: Brandon Reynolds

Thanks Jake, That was pretty much my mind set on how to go thru with this. I am thinking of a conventional loan 20% down on a SFR just to get my feet wet with landlording/investing. I can pick up a SFR for around 60k without much effort but I am trying obviously trying to find deals that are better than that.

Thanks for the responses guys. I didn't mean for this to be a "tell me what to do" type of thread. I meant it to be more of a what would you do if you were to start from scratch again. I was hoping to inspire multiple, different views on what the best first step is. I understand we are strangers on the internet but what would YOU do if you had to start over again. Reading about different perspectives will likely open my (or other newibes) eyes to all the options in REI.

Ok so I discovered BP a few weeks ago and I am blown away by this amazing place! What a great community of people and the education I have already received is life changing.

A little about my self- I have recently found my self unhappy with my life, I know that sounds pitiful but it's not like that. I have achieved every goal I thought I would ever have wanted 10 years ago (married, 2 kids, nice house with 5 acres of land/pond, great school district, great job making good money, no debt other than house which we have decent equity in and low payment) and now I feel like those goals were small in comparison to my new goals. Almost like I am having a mid life crisis at 30 but instead of wanting a flashy car or motorcycle, I want to be wealthy and enjoy my life not trade my time for money, I want to spend time with my kids. I recently read The Millionaire Fastlane and it completely changed my thought process about money. I have since started reading every book I can on the subject of creating wealth and I have decided RE is the best way to do it. 

I can do almost anything construction related, So fixing up a property is not an issue other than my time. I am willing to sacrifice though to get to where I want to be. 

Financially I would say that we are doing good for our age and having never really thought about money other than what are we going to spend it on. We make more than enough at our jobs to support a nice lifestyle and have about 60k equity in our house. We have 15k in "spending money" that isn't allocated towards kids college.  My wife also has a retirement fund from her old job with around 18k in it that we do not contribute to anymore. 

Ok so now say you were me what would your first step be? Should I start with a SFH and just get a convential loan and put 20% down? Should we cash out her old retirement and add it to our cash and get a credit line on our house to buy a house all cash? Maybe flip a few houses to make some extra money then start to acquire rentals? I really want to build wealth not just make a quick buck so I see rentals or multi fam house as the end goal. We have great credit so getting a loan should be easy I think. Just nervous about what the right first thing to do is. I want to get the right plan in place before I start putting in offers on property's. Any advice is welcome and thanks again to BP for such a wonderful place!