All Forum Posts by: Brian Erickson

@Patrick Britton there's my current problem. I have a job that allows me to 'drive for dollars' so I'm compiling a list of multi-family properties to cold call. We currently reside in a SFR and have lined up financing which would max us out at roughly 500k for a secondary residence. Our plan is to find something local that we could 'house hack', turning our current residence into a rental while we add value into something that we could ideally find under our budget but it's going to take some grinding to find something that meets the criteria! Did I mention we have 3 kids? Hahaha.

@Brian Ploszay  originally I thought that we would need to live in the residence (hence wanting to stay in or near Seattle proper, we currently reside in Burien) to qualify for financing but I don't think that is the case.  As a 'newbie' investor it seems less daunting to try and establish connections and a team out of state in a more affordable market to begin our RE investment journey.

Trying to figure out an area to focus on and get in the MULTI FAMILY game.  We live in the northwest and we'd love to dive in a more affordable market..

We've got a handful of candidates narrowed down by affordability, knowledge by association and places that just resonate/excite with us.  Cincinnati (OH), Memphis (TN), Philly (PA), Kansas City (MO), as well as the southwest (AZ, but NM specifically) are places that the numbers look great but our lack of area knowledge is making us hesitate.

Open to suggestions of where to focus on and/or establish relationships and build teams in order to obtain properties that cash-flow (preferably with higher potential to appreciate obviously).

Any outstanding realtors in the greater Seattle area that can find me a house-hackable multi-family property so I can stay local?

What say you forums?

Thanks @Amanda G.  Hoping to put feelers out for potential markets and then work on establishing relationships and networking in an area that makes sense.  I'm not going to say 'I can't', but numbers make much more sense elsewhere other than Seattle.  

Well maybe not yet.  But you've got to start somewhere!

Hey everyone!  My name is Brian, and I'm teaming up with my wife Elizabeth to achieve financial freedom using real estate as our vessel.

Just over a month ago my wife's phone was submerged in liquid by one of our small children.  Turns out it was the best thing to happen to us (besides the aforementioned children) this year.  The chain of events caused by the demise of the phone brought Elizabeth to a used book store where she picked up a copy of a book she hadn't read since high school, it was a book I'd never even heard of.. yep, you guessed it.  Rich Dad Poor Dad.

For over a month now, I've been diving in daily to anything real estate I can get my hands on.  BP, books, forums, scouring Zillow, Redfin, Realtor, Loopnet, you name it I just can't get enough.  We haven't even done our first deal yet (unless you count our primary residence which we're also thinking differently about at this point, thinking about potential value add's and potentially renting it out if we could find something else where the numbers make sense) but we're already hooked.

I am a professional delivery driver for a fairly large company and for the last month during work I've been burning through the BP podcasts at a very rapid rate.  My job doesn't have the best work/life balance and it's something we're hoping to change using the power of real estate.

My wonderful partner and I want to focus primarily on multi-family dwelling rentals using a buy and hold strategy.  If all goes well and we learn how to crunch the numbers correctly and build teams as necessary we'd love to branch out and try other wealth building strategies that real estate can offer.

Currently we live in a market that is a little daunting to find investment property in (Seattle) and we're initially feeling more comfortable with numbers in markets elsewhere.  My birthday is coming up next week and my wife and I agreed that David Greene's long distance investment book was an investment in itself worthy of the birthday gift.  We haven't made any concrete decisions about where we want to establish a team out of state but Memphis, Oklahoma City and Kansas City have stood out as early front runners.

We're excited to learn, excited to be here, excited to meet other like-minded individuals, excited to build relationships and most importantly, excited to keep taking action to start reaching our goal of breaking my 'golden handcuffs' and reaching financial freedom!

Cheers!