Quote from @Cody Cline:
Hi there, me and my wife currently own a small business and have 3 beautiful children in Redding ca. We are looking to start investing this year maybe early next with not a lot of money (20k) but we also have equity in our home. There are many investment loans and we are in need of help understanding which ones work in which situations . Iv been researching alot but I think we are in need of someone that’s been through this and does this stuff on the daily to help us understand the basics to investing smart and whether our area is a good place to even start or should we put our money elsewhere. I like that saying live where you want and invest where it makes sense I just wouldn’t know the first step to investing outside of my direct area. Sorry for the long post we have a lot of newbie questions thanks for reading.
Cline Family
Hey Cody, I am an agent that works exclusively with investors in the North Carolina markets. I work with many people who are out of state, and many from Cali. Would be happy to jump on a call with you anytime and give some insights into investing long distance if that is the route you are looking to take.
As you are aware Cali is very expensive, and it may be possible to stretch your money further in other markets throughout the country. If you are going to tackle that challenge, the most important thing you need is a team. The right team; a communicative team, a hard working, and honest one. Connecting with people in markets across the country that you may find interesting, or simply just asking people where they are looking if not in Cali may give you direction on where to start looking. Once you have identified areas of interest, or people who may know about an area that you need to speak with, it's just doing the legwork. Making the calls, vetting the agents, vetting the GCs, vetting the Inspectors, vetting the PM, vetting the Attorney, typically once you've made a really solid connection with one of these people, they will be able to connect you to the rest.
As the saying goes, "birds of a feather, flock together" - If you find a really great PM, or Agent, they likely take their referral process very serious as their name is attached (maybe not through legal liability), but just in the fact that they are mentioning someone they think may be worth the time. Reputation is everything in Real Estate, whether wholesaler, agent, or investor, or other professions related. So odds are you will likely get solid referrals once you find the first checkmark.
As you are building your team it's crucial that you build it while setting expectations. Tell every single entity you use how you are expecting the business to go. Some people use contractual obligations to achieve this, others build relationships and the workmanship becomes well organized and extremely effective. Just make sure you don't drop the ball on conveying to the appropriate parties how you want things handled, and compromising appropriately where needed.
That leads me to my final point about building a team, It's YOUR business, therefore it's YOUR team. Run your investing, just like you would run a business. Recruit your teams, fire them if needed, set expectations, do the work, make profit. Put your systems in place (and this is something that other investors/agents that work with investors, financial planners, Attorneys, CPAs can help you to do). Once you've got everything organized, a vetted team in place, it's a matter of finding the right deals at the right numbers.
Sounds easy and super complex at the same time. Keep asking questions to your peers, making connections, watching videos, reading books and you can be in a position confidently in a few months where you may be ready to the trigger. Try to avoid getting analysis paralysis though, it's easy to get into a mind set of "I still need to learn more before I am ready." While this may be true, the best time to invest was yesterday, so every day that is delayed in fear of not knowing is a day wasted. Don't rush into anything, but don't get cold feet when the time follow through presents itself.
Hope there was some value in there for you, and anyone else who finds themself in a similar position. If you want to connect and chat ever, let me know! Happy to help anyone I can, like mentioned earlier- I am an agent in NC, but with this community I love to connect even if my services won't be relevant.
Cheers!
