All Forum Posts by: Don Johnston

Hey Chris, I know what Gagan Johal means about the long Cali drives.  I drove truck for 2 years and appreciated satellite radio and the "radio shows" and books on it.  Some the the hiways are horrendously boring...like I-5 up to Sacramento.

Indianapolis is a good area for rehabs and buy and hold.  I have a property there.

So where do you toss your pillow at night most of the time when it isn't a hotel?  San Diego? 

Welcome to San Diego...my home town.  I too lived in Florida; Valrico, FL just east of Tampa but before the Strawberry Festival in Plant City, FL.  Loved it there except for the humidity.  I live at the opposite end of the County - Chula Vista!

I am the 62 year old Don Johnston on this site. If you come across another Don Johnston on Bigger Pockets who is younger, that isn’t me. I got started in real estate when interest rates were double digits…1980. I borrowed the course from someone who had passed and eventually became a broker here in San Diego. I studied, passed the exam, worked real estate part time and was unsuccessful.

Over the years, besides the missionary endeavors I was involved in during the time I got my license, I have been in construction – commercial tenant improvements and residential handyman trades, computer programming, recruiting, camp cook, helpdesk work and over the road truck driver for 2 years. Life’s road for many people isn’t straight but rather curvy and full of “forks” in the road. That would be mine.

Right now I am back to construction services (fancy for handyman) trying to figure a way to really “break” into this real estate investing thing. I have studied, to a point, some of the “guru’s” materials noting the exclusions that cause you to buy more. I have been involved on the backoffice side of a rehab in Indianapolis, IN working from San Diego.

My ultimate goal is to buy and hold (with probable rehab in the middle) for positive cash flow…semi passive income (you can never truly get 100% away from the working end of things.) But right now I am inflicted with LOI much the same as many investors-to-be…Lack Of Income. Wholesaling looks desirable since one can replace more hard work for lack of funds but the time it can take before my first deal is closed is not so desirable. At my age with no retirement I feel under a great time pressure.

So, I am searching all avenues, including Bigger Pockets for education and direction to figure out where my niche will be in this business and I am looking outside the box because the boxes I have opened have either been empty or too full and “complicated”.

Happy to meet any and all of you here on Bigger Pockets as I really do believe strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet.