All Forum Posts by: Candace Buckstead

@Candace Buckstead @Conner Olsen and I are doing extremely well with STR and MTR in our househacks. I live for free with it

Hey guys! So my name is Nathan I am 25, happily married, from the Broadway/Sanford NC area, which is 45 minutes south west of Raleigh/Cary, and 30 minutes north of Fayetteville.

Our area is beginning to grow quickly due to being in an area with plenty of manufacturing, as well as being centrally located between Raleigh/Triangle and Fayetteville/Fort Bragg. (You can also travel down US1 and be in Moore County in 15-20 minutes.)

I work in tech remotely, started web design in high-school, didn't take the college path went to the school of hard knocks, now work as a support engineer at a major pharmaceutical earning just north of six figures. Over the past 3-4 years I have been looking for different sources of incomes to pin on to achieve mine and my wife's goal of retiring between 45-50.

I have been interested in flipping properties since I worked for my dad in construction and carpentry out of high-school before landing my first true tech job on contract at Cisco.

This year I started reading fairly heavy, first 3 or 4 books weren't real-estate, they were mainly self growth books, then I asked a friend of whom is currently flipping and renting properties, what books he would recommend for learning about real estate investing... He bought and sent me three! (Rich dad, poor dad, the millionaire real estate investor, and the richest man of Babylon). I also ended up buying flipping houses by J Scott, and a few others, the first real estate book i read was J Scott's book on flipping homes..

incredible read, then i read Rich dad, poor dad this book is now in my top 3 favorite books, an wholesaling book, and currently 200 some pages into the millionaire real estate investor, my wheels are already spinning out how i can put my tech skills to work on a personel website for automating some of the marketing, network, and prospecting portion.

 I also started listening to the bigger pockets podcast a few months back, I started it from the first one on Spotify and working my way through them, this podcast is rich in information!

My wife and i bought our first home just about a year ago, we are aiming to use it as an investment property, building equity, our home has already appreciated just about 10% in a year from our purchase price at 200k even, with between 10-12k down payment. We are between renting it or selling the property in 8-10 years.

We are currently flipping furniture, yes you heard that right, furniture in our spare time, in most cases we buy on marketplace then refinish it and resell it, to help save more toward our real estate investing path.

I want to increase my knowledge in real estate investing for another year before going into the first flip, as well as watch the market/economy to time the right buy.

My personal real estate goals as of right now, is to either wholesale or flip properties to build more revenue up, then invest in rentals, 1-3 flips -> buy a rental, and cycle this until we have 10-15 properties similar to the millionaire real estate investors model.

End goal with real estate is to have the cash flow to retire before 50, and have our networth over 1.5 million.

Looking forward to soaking in valuable information related to real estate for years to come, possibly contributing to the BP community as my understanding grows, as well as growing financially!

- Nathan Reynolds

@Candace Buckstead I would recommend starting by househacking and then buying investment properties as soon as you're able. That's worked very well for me and I'm under contract on my 5th househack now too!

 Welcome aboard Candace.

 I did a duplex house hack and Airbnb'd the other side. It's a great strategy and very profitable. I would use the money to house hack and then learn as much as possible by joining different groups, buying books, etc.

@Candace Buckstead  I definitely recommend first house hacking a single fam home, or a duplex triplex or quadplex (since those are all eligible for owner occupant mortgages).

I would probably suggest not starting off with an STR (air bnb). The reason being: STRs are a bit more of an advanced strategy, and usually require quite a bit more effort and expertise than house hacking. Also, the STR market tends to be less reliable (when the economy is in recession--as it might be right now--travel is usually the first thing people cut from their budgets, and STRs can get hit hard with vacancy). In fact, there's evidence that this is already occurring. STRs that are not the absolute peak performers are already having issues with vacancy, and AirBnB recently changed their platform so that only the absolute cream of the crop units (five star resort-level luxury units with thousands of perfect guest ratings) are getting promoted.

In a nutshell, STRs are a lot more work, require a lot more expertise, and are a lot less reliable/secure than traditional long term rentals (all other things being equal).

Plus, house hacking a long term rental will give you invaluable experience in how to analyze, acquire, and a manage a property that you can then apply to doing a STR in the future (if you decide you want to go that route).

Start with the strategy that is the easiest, simplest, and most likely to succeed (house hacking), and then gradually build up to more advanced strategies (like STRs, BRRR's, etc.) as you gain experience.

Good luck out there!

Welcome to Bigger Pockets!! If the end goal is to be traveling and spend only 5-10 hours a week on real estate, you can start being passive in your journey from now. I have a W2 job and invest out of state in Cleveland and buy SFH and small multi families. The budget that you have would be perfect for a area like Cleveland. Feel free to connect and we can discuss.

Hi Candace!

Very exciting & welcome to the community :) First off, you're already doing great! Great job saving $25k by 22. In terms of investment approach, you'll be able to leverage lower down payments on owner occupied properties (many banks have down payment assistance programs, and sometimes you'll only need to bring in 1% down). Generally speaking, you can leverage 5% down in most situations if you're going to buy a primary residence. For an STR, you're likely going to need at least 10% if not 15% down on an investment loan instead.

In terms of capital efficiency, I always advise people to start with a house hack (to leverage low down payments), but you're in a unique situation where you can live at home and minimize cost of living already. What are price points like in the markets that you're looking at? Are you looking in Austin?

My journey started with a house hack (we lived in a guest unit & Airbnb'ed the main house) & we were able to still cash flow ~$3-$3.5k a month on the main house. I think sometimes people don't realize how much cash flow is possible with a house hack especially if you utilize STRs as well. Personal bias, but that's where I'd start :) 

Welcome to the journey & good luck on deal #1!