Hi Everyone! My name is Jason Paddock and I'm a San Diego native. I would like to get into real estate investing to find properties to buy and hold. There are a lot of options when it comes to RE investing and I'm finding a few different strategies that peak my interest, but I want to make sure I start with a crawl, walk, run mentality. I would love to invest in my local area, but San Diego is really expensive and I haven't seen properties that can cash flow from day one like I can find in other states. I would like to try wholesaling locally and buying remotely.
My primary market will be multi-family. I'm thinking 4 - 12 units in size. My thought here is that the overall cost for x units is cheaper for a multi-family than multiple SFH and the risk on not receiving rental income is less since it's unlikely that all units would be vacant at the same time. My idea is that property will always be producing some amount of cash flow to cover most if not all expenses when a unit is vacant. Is this the correct mindset around multi-family? Are there things I should be concerned about regarding multi-family?
I'm also interested in section 8 rentals. There's a guy on TikTok (Section8Mogul) where he talks about getting cheap properties (60K-100K) and then works with the local housing authority to rent them to section 8 tenants. My interest here is the ability to acquire cheap properties where the government is guaranteeing rent payments and the government pays a premium compared to the average rent in the area. He talks about doing everything virtually and that he has never seen over half of his properties in person. This part scares me. Does anyone have insights on virtual buying and the pros/cons? Any experience with renting to section 8 would be helpful too. If you're able to find turnkey properties at this price point, these properties are able to cash flow decently right out the gate. I typically see $300 - $600+/month in net positive cashflow if you get a 3 bedroom.
I have interest in mid-term rentals. From what I'm hearing, there is a huge lack of inventory in this area. My thought is if I happen to find 2 bedrooms that are within a few miles of a major/large hospital or corp offices, these could be good fits for mid-term rentals.
Lastly, another area that interests me is STR (AirBnB/VRBO/etc). My thought here is that I would start in locations where I would want to visit on vacation so that I have properties to utilize across the country. I know there are cities that are starting to shut down on STR. Is this a market that I should wait on until the dust settles or is it just about choosing the cities that doesn't have any STR restrictions? My concern is that more cities will start to implement STR restrictions/fees.
What do you all do? Do you go wide with multiple strategies depending on the properties that are available or do you focus on one type of property and then expand once you start to have a portfolio?
I have phenomenal personal credit (800+) and a decent amount of equity in my house (~600K). I would like to avoid utilizing the equity in my house and to buy properties either using capital stacking, private lenders, and/or seller financing.
I see a lot of influencers talking about creating a 20M+ portfolio without using any of their own money. I don't understand why you would continue getting private lenders once you have enough cash flow/equity in other investment properties. Does anyone have thoughts on this? Is it just a way to reduce risk or is because all of your capital is stuck in other properties and you actually need new cash to start another deal?
A lot here and I'm excited to get started. Thanks in advance for the guidance and connections.
