All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Miller

The main thing holding me back is capital. I have found some great deals (one of them giving $1000 ROI in a good area), but I do not have the up front money. What I lack in capital, I make up for in knowledge and handy work. Currently just trying to find a partner who has the upfront money and work out a partnership deal.

Good Morning BP,

I have recently been looking at a bunch of properties in the Chicagoland area and am running into a dilemma - I'm finding great properties, but do not have the capital to do anything. For example, I found a 4-unit property for $550,000 in a good area - double lot, commercial space on the ground floor, and very well maintained, the only thing it needs is tuck pointing. My thoughts are to go in at $520,000 which would be minus the $30,000 for tuck pointing. I ran the numbers and that property would give a $1,000 cash flow or 9.25% cash on cash.

However, a good friend of mine told me about "Home Possible" which I could possibly get properties for only 5% down. If I went this route, I would be looking in areas that aren't the best, some of them are around 6-7% ROI and I would essentially empty out all of my savings. My question is: is there an experienced investor out there that is willing to work a deal with a newbie (i.e. they finance and I maintain/do repairs on the building while learning from them), or do I have a better chance going it alone?

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone!

@Tyler Hiatt & @Jared W Smith thanks for the information! I'll look more into the design/developer side of things and perhaps look into partnering with someone who has the realtor skills and learn as I go along with them. It won't be a large return at first, but the knowledge gained may be worth it in the long run.

Thanks @Jared W Smith. I'm happy to see a fellow architect on this site. Have you done any deals within the past year, or still in the works? I'm trying to figure out where my current knowledge would best fit for now while I learn new things.

Good Morning Everyone,

I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself. My name is Jonathan Miller, I'm 28, and I graduated last year with a Masters of Architecture. I have 4 years of experience in the field, have done work updating a few houses, and am working on becoming licenced.  However, after working the 8-5 daily grind I've realized that architecture isn't going to be the best retirement plan (unless I start my own firm). Since my passion is residential architecture, I decided to start looking into real estate investment. 

After doing some research and realizing there are different avenues I can take on this journey, I met up with someone from my church group who works at a firm as a real estate investor. He suggested that my best avenue would be to get in on the real estate side of things for the best cash flow. (He also said it's easier to get into real estate this way because a lot of construction companies already have the market saturated). I love to learn and want to get in on the real estate side, but I still want to be able to utilize my technical and design skills. Any advice for a newbie?

I also realize I need to post a picture of myself in my profile. I will once I get home from work tonight. 

Thanks in advance and I'm excited to talk with and learn from everyone!