All Forum Posts by: Charles Masten

@Matt R. I hear you. Rookie mistake by me trying to separate the two, but thats why I'm here! I think we looked at our budget and completely threw out looking in our own backyard due to how expensive it is, but now I think we need to look at creative ways to try and get into the market through various was of financing that works with our budget and fits our criteria. Thank you so much for your input, appreciate you! 

@Brandon Goldsmith definitely! I think being flexible with our strategy and focusing on the type of deal we are looking at is such great advice! Thank you for your insight it means a lot! I'll have to get together with my partner and analyze a few different deals and see which deal works best for which strategy. Cheers to you! :D 

@Twana Rasoul thank you so much for taking the time to reply! Appreciate your insight! You're right, more doors/roofs is a double edged sword and I should be looking at both equity and cash flow being equally attainable. I thought areas such as San Diego, San Francisco, and LA were closed off to us due to how much it costs to get into the market here but I think I need to start taking a deeper dive into my own backyard! All of you who have responded are rock stars thank you!

@Brian Garrett I see I've been looking at it totally wrong, I thought focusing on one could help us scale faster and ultimately grow that portfolio quicker. Thank you for opening my eyes that both are doable! Appreciate your help :D

@Tesho Akindele I see! I need to stop looking at one or the other and begin to look at both being equally important. With good cash flow, the equity will come with time. Thank you so much for your response!

Hello BiggerPockets family!

My partner and I are beginning our real estate investing journey! We've been listening to endless podcasts, reading a lot of the BP books, and perusing the BP forums and blogs as much as we can to make the best decisions and educate ourselves the best we can. First and foremost, I want to thank each and every one of you for welcoming us into this community; it is truly amazing to see everybody supporting and lifting each other up we feel so lucky to be apart of it.

My question today is about cash flow vs building up equity to open more doors. We plan on using the Buy and Hold strategy for multi family properties and are looking to invest OOS (we live in San Diego and not sure we can afford to break into this market quite yet as beginners). Big picture - we want to build our portfolio sooner rather than later and I am just wondering what would help us achieve that goal of adding more doors quicker, focusing on cash flow or focusing on building our equity? We are lucky enough that we are not in need of big cash flow, although it would obviously be nice. We have identified several markets we believe look very promising based on the 6 areas we learned about from a BP blog post (job creation, population growth, buildings coming to market, government planning, affordability, and absorption/vacancy rates) and are looking to purchase our first property within 90 days. Or maybe we are being to nitpicky and getting into our first property is more important than looking at these aspects and learning by doing haha.

Thank you so much in advance for taking the time to help us out and we look forward to being apart of this great community!