All Forum Posts by: Christopher S.

Hi @Ali Boone !

Thanks for stopping by. :) I agree with your adventurous travel philosophy completely! My biggest international trip was right after graduating from school-- I took a few thousand in saved cash and moved to Argentina. I spent the first of two years down there in Buenos Aires working as a freelance university chemistry tutor and English teacher to scrape together some money while learning Spanish. The second year I spent hitchhiking through Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, picking up odd jobs in hostels and as a backcountry mountain guide along the way. It's my time down there that planted the seeds for establishing a lifestyle that would allow me to continue doing similar things.

What kind of investing do you do, and what are your favorite areas out of state? I also see you have Nicaragua listed in your profile under markets-- I'd be very curious to hear about that.

Slowly moving through my responses here, haha-- thanks again, everyone.

@Derrick Craig , @Haim Mamane Palman

Thanks for the responses! This is the second or third time in the past week or two that I've heard talk about investing in Memphis. What's the biggest draw to the market there in your eyes?

@Ken Siew

Thanks! It's good to be here. I've not been working at this long enough to have encountered major sticking points yet, but of what I can foresee:

• Being that I'm experimenting with this and want to keep the other parts of my FI goals intact, I've set an RE allocation for my overall portfolio and I'm trying to stay disciplined about it. I'm saving up hard right now, but I'm a bit limited by my available down payment money at the moment (can discuss details/numbers by PM). I expect to have about twice as much by fall, which was about when I was thinking to pull the trigger on my first deal.
• I have a lot of research to do before dialing in on which market I'll be starting in, after which I need to go about finding a reputable local turnkey company, property manager, and lawyer. After having done some research online on my own, I've set up keyword alerts on the site for cities and topics of interest. I imagine I'll spend a lot of time asking local experts about these things in particular as well.

Do you have a specific niche and strategy that you prefer, or are you more of a generalist? Where did you get your start on out-of-state deals?

@Jay Y.

@Jay Y.

Thanks! It's exciting to see people with common goals. I'm pretty early on in my FI journey (just began to grasp the notion and possibility of it this past November), but I can definitely see the usefulness of real estate in shortening the time line.

I'll happily take you both up on your offers to connect.

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome, links, and tips!

@J. Martin , I'll definitely look into local meetups. I'm very curious to learn about local opportunities, as well, as I genuinely have a lot of faith in the future of the economy and desirability of this place, even if I do end up starting my search farther from home.

@James Wise Thanks! I'll likely be in touch soon. I went to school in Cleveland, so I've seen the recent renaissance and see it as a friendly place to start, so I'm very curious to hear your take on the market.

Hi Bigger Pockets!

My name is Chris, and I'm brand new to the real estate investing landscape. I found my way to the site through a handful of bloggers in the financial independence/early retirement community. I've been listening to the BP Podcast on my commute for the past few weeks and have managed to learn a good deal already-- There's quite an impressive community and wealth of information here!

Coming from the FI motivation, I'm looking for a way to build enough semi-passive income over the next few years to cover my living expenses, and I'm currently hoping to accomplish this by assembling a buy-and-hold portfolio of single and small multifamily rentals. While I'm open to local opportunities, the Bay Area at first glance seems a bit competitive for me with my full-time job in technology and somewhat modest amount of income earmarked for a first acquisition, and I suspect there might be clearer opportunities for solid cash flow elsewhere. I'm beginning to research out-of-state investing, mostly focusing on turnkey opportunities in larger cities in the midwest (Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati in particular), where I have a good core of friends and family.

In my free time, I enjoy outdoors activities (backpacking, rock climbing, mountaineering), international travel, language learning, and reading.

I look forward to learning a good deal here and to contributing what I can to the community!