All Forum Posts by: Steve Hoghe

Ian, what neighborhoods in Albany do you own in? I am looking at investing here as well, specifically the Pine Hills neighborhood. You mentioned that there is a shortage of inventory, but I see a few places that have rent to price ratios higher than 1%. I haven't yet run detailed analysis of any of these places, but I'm curious, are you not interested in these because the return is not high enough for your criteria, or in your experience do you find that these properties do not cash flow?

@Nick Hedberg thanks for the invite. I'll be there and look forward to meeting you.

Hi All, I plan on attending. @Suzy Crawford this will be my first one as well, so you're not alone!

Hello Albany residents, I'm looking for a little local insight. I am from Delmar originally, now living in California, but looking to invest in Albany given that I cannot afford to out here and still have many contacts in the area. I am currently looking in the Pine Hills area, and am debating on going the multi or SFH route for buy and hold. After some quick searching, there seem to be some multis and SFH that meet the 1% rule.

My question is, how strong is the demand for SFH rentals in the area? It seems to me that renting a 3BR SHF at 1400/month doesn't make sense if you can just purchase a 140k house for 5k down and ~900/month (mortgage plus mortgage insurance using a FHA loan. Obviously for recent grads living 3 heads to a place they are not going to purchase a house, so I guess that is part two of the question - does the area trend more to single grads or young families with kids (who would actually consider purchasing)?

On a side note, I will be in the area in mid November and plan on viewing some properties. Would love to meet any local investors or other people in the business while I'm back.

Hi there Bigger Pockets! I'd like to introduce myself as a new investor from Santa Monica. I'm 31 and have been a lifelong corporate monkey as an accountant and auditor. I always wanted to "get into" real estate, but never took the initiative to figure out what that meant or how to do it. A year ago I moved from Boston to SoCal and that changed my whole mindset in terms of how easy it can be to affect major changes in your life if you really want to. During my most recent foray into switching careers I stumbled upon BP. I've spent the last month and half going through the wealth of information on this site, listening to the podcasts, trying to educate myself about real estate investing, and the industry as a whole, as best I can.

Now that I have a base knowledge of the various businesses and players within the real estate industry - and my wonderful girlfriend is willing to support my endeavours - I'm ready to commit and am seeking to make inroads. Concurrent with investing myself, I'm seeking to start a career in the industry because I want gain more hands on knowledge in some capacity and quite frankly I love thinking and talking about real estate would love to get paid to do so. Specifically, I am exploring three paths:

1. Go the more corporate route and try and find an analyst position with an asset manager/developer/RE services firm. I have not had much luck with this thus far, given my lack of experience.

2. Work towards becoming a property manager. I don't love the fact that I have to become a licensed broker in order to work as a property manager, but I'm willing to do whatever it takes if this is the path I decided to go down.

3. Work directly with other investors. Specifically, I would love to work with rehabbers. My dad turned the house I grew up in from a 3 unit apartment into a 5 bedroom house and I've always been fascinated with the building side of the business. So any rehabbers out there looking for an eager apprentice, I'm all yours!

I apologize for the lengthy introduction, I didn't realize how the thoughts would start flowing once I started typing. I'll end with saying I'm eager to get out and start meeting people in the area. I see that there is a large SoCal contingent here on BP and look forward to meeting some of you in the near future!

 -Steve