All Forum Posts by: Isaac Phillips

@Kody King

Perfect, I'd like that.

@Dustin Griesing

I'd like to stick with smaller multifamily units as a buy and hold strategy but open to other opportunities as well. I've even looked at house hacking the first one as a duplex. I was working on a large unit that was listed as a FSBO on Stonegate, but held off for several reasons. My realtor ended up with the listing, and it the property sustained a fair amount of damage in the flood, so its was a good thing that I passed.

I would love to pick your brain on your experiences in our local market.

Welcome @Jon Lopez! You have certainly come to the right place.

What do you know of your local market so far?

Isaac

Hi everyone,

My name is Isaac Phillips and I'm way late on my introduction post, but better late than never. My family and I live here in the Tri-cities area of Michigan (Saginaw, Bay City, Midland). We love the Midland area, and would like to start our real estate investment portfolio around here if possible. I am in third party rail logistics operations management.

I really do not have much real estate experience. I have been a landlord by default, as I initially purchased my first home (in NC) towards the end of the 2008 market, then moved in 2010 and rented it out for three years to ride out the market and avoid taking a huge hit on the value of the home. During that time I had two property managers, and one tenant. Everything went well overall, and I was able to break even on the property instead of taking a 15k loss.

Fast forward till now – I have purchased another home where we live now and saved a nice nest-egg to start our investment portfolio. Our goals are to have a 50/50 of equities/RE for our retirement – and to possibly build a bridge of RE income that can carry us from 50 to legal retirement age, whatever that has become by then.

Brandon always says you have to have the 3 D's – dollars (down payment), direction, and deals. I've mostly got the first two but am really having a hard time finding the deals. We are in a hot market, where homes sell before officially listing, or after being on the market for a few days. It is not a major metro area, so inventory is limited. There do not seem to be any deals when shopping retail on the MLS, so I am looking at buying a list next. I have bird-dogged a few houses that looked vacant, by using our local GIS and social media to identify the owner – then called about the property. So far, I am still coming up empty handed.

I am open to any input or experiences you can share in that regard. BP has been a great learning tool, and I look forward to building even more on that as I learn from each of you.

Thanks,