All Forum Posts by: Dustin Owens

Hi @Dustin Owens

One thing to remember when you are getting into RE investing is to have your team of people or as Brandon Turner from the Bigger Pockets Podcast calls it your CORE 4

1. Your contractor

2. Your deal finder (agent/wholesaler)

3. Your property manager

4. Your Lender

My suggestion to find #2 & #4 would be to go to the top of this page and click on FIND AN AGENT & FIND A LENDER. There you will be asked your criteria and then after answering a few questions you will be matched with 3-5 agents or loan officers in your area. My suggestion would be to select someone with the most forum posts or most reviews. That way you know they are active in the BP community!

@Dustin Owens You’re in a very solid position starting out. I’ve built a 25 door portfolio on a salary that never topped $45,000. If I had access to a salary of $220,000 I’d have double the number of doors.

Live well below your means and focus on 3+ unit properties and you’ll have your income replaced in no time.

I’ve just MOSTLY retired from my W-2 job and I’m working to cut my living expenses. I’m having no problem filling up my days with real estate related things to do but my market is currently tight and I’m having trouble sourcing new deals.

If you can stay in a local market for your first purchase I’d recommend it to get the experience you need before attempting to move to an out of state market.

I’ve looked at several out of state markets because people claim the barrier to entry is lower but I have yet to find anything that has the same potential for appreciation and a lower cost of management than I have in my current target markets.

I’m not saying don’t eventually look out of state but I wouldn’t start there.

@Dustin Owens

Where to start...

Why are you selling your house? You should be taking out a HELOC or doing a cash-out refi(depending on your interest rate). Take out as much as you can while still being able to rent the property at least at breakeven. Or, get the HELOC and do some house hacking by bringing in roommates.

But, let's say you do the HELOC, rent out your house, and then go buy a small multi-family that you can also live in. The concept here is to get to the point where your tenants pay for your housing expenses, which should give you some excess income to save and invest.

These initial steps could get you to a point where you have a few doors and maybe even have your tenants covering your own housing expenses.

Think carefully about selling, it seems counter-productive if you want to be an investor.

@Dustin Owens That's great man. If you're moving to a new location that's a good reason to sell. My wife and I did the say thing last year. Market research and a better understanding what, where, and when to buy is all your lacking. 

How will you make the $220k? Did you add value to the property or did the market do it for you?

You have construction and remodeling experience. LEVERAGE it and find distressed deals. Turn key is over priced most of the time. You're paying for the sweat equity another investor did. You can't scale buying turn key. Connect with a local agent that owns rentals and start looking for opportunities where the numbers make sense. House hacking is a great way to jump in but it's not the only way to find success.

@Dustin Owens Why are you selling your home? You make $110k per year. 

I make half your income at my 9-5, have BRRRR'd a few SFH, and all them were base hits.

Get into PM work and get some experience dealing with tenants. This could be a real eye opener for you. I dabbled with PM, handyman work, and sec 8 tenants before we started buying rentals. My wife and I decided to avoid it when buying property. In my market it's easier to Sec8 a property and get better returns. We choose a slower more difficult path because we don't want the headaches. 

Dustin, I have 12-doors in Detroit and 3 of those are Section 8 rentals.

I'm overall neutral on the program. If it works for the particular property and location, great. If not, I have no issues taking on a "cash paying" tenant.

In terms of what I would do in your shoes with $100k... it sounds like your plan is pretty solid. I like the idea of renting if you can keep it low cost. I wrote a blog post about this recently... it's not at all bad to be renting in today's market if you can invest that money at a higher return.

If you can stay local to where you are now, that's even better! The key is your local market must align with your goals and timeline. It sounds like that may be possible.

If you're planning to go out of state, I'm happy to give more thoughts around that too. It's been great for me, but it's a bit more challenging than being close by.

Hey Dustin, I’m  a newer investor myself with 9 doors across the Midwest. Would be happy to connect and share about my investments and what I’m seeing in the Midwest.