All Forum Posts by: Josh L.

Following this thread. I've been thinking a lot about this lately as I am currently saving for a first rental purchase, and the best answer I can find so far is 'it depends on which market you are in'.

Hi guys, I'm also a new investor in the Austin area, still educating myself and saving for a down payment with a plan to buy my first rental early next year. I'd love to join for a BP meetup near Austin. I've also joined the RENC and will be attending next month's meeting. I can't make it to the 3-day training event until next time around, however, so please follow up and let everyone know how it was!

Currently just waiting to save up cash for reserves and a down payment, but it won't be too long now that I have zero debts.

Thanks for the responses, guys. For now I'm planning to spend the next few months saving up cash and reading/learning everything I can get my hands on prior to taking the plunge. My wife insists on buying a personal residence first, and doesn't like the idea of living in a duplex/triplex. I really couldn't argue with that, so I think we'll be looking for a fixer-upper that we can live in after remodeling, but with high enough ARV that we can refinance and cash out some of the equity to put towards buying a rental soon afterwards. Does that sound like a reasonable plan?

I guess in some markets this works, but personally I would always move on to the next house if there is a bidding war. There is always another house, and it seems dishonest for an agent to intentionally create a condition for this to occur. It may benefit them in the short term but in the long term they are helping to create he next bubble.

Thanks everyone. I did find one of the local meet-ups here in Austin and will be attending their talk on Flipping Tuesday of next week! 

Hi Everyone, 

I am just getting started with the idea of Real Estate as a possible investment or (future) full time business and still in the learning stages. Over the past few weeks I've been reading books, listening to various podcasts, and have signed up to go to a local REI group meetup next Tuesday, basically just absorbing all the information I possibly can. I have a general idea of what I'd like to do but could use some advice on specifics and timeline given the good situation I find myself in.

Where I'm at now:

- Zero debt, personal or business. I relocated from Colorado back home to Texas in March of this year. This allowed my wife and I to be closer to family. We used the proceeds from selling our primary residence in CO to pay off debts (cars, student loans, credit cards - all of it gone). 

- Gainfully employed as a software engineer. 

- Renting a house while building savings. Our current lease ends in April 2017 and goes month-to-month after that. 

- Can throw about $3,000/month into savings after basic monthly expenses (with a few exceptions such as a new baby coming in September). Currently have around $10k in our emergency fund, and would like to double that before putting any of our own money into investments, but at this rate that should only be another few months. 

- Excellent credit, last time I checked my score was 774. 

Goals/Where I'd like to be:

- Buy a personal residence at 10% down/15yr mortgage and stop renting by the time our current lease is up next May.

- Looking into buying and flipping 2 houses in the next 12 months to help fund the above. Not quite sure where to start with this part.

-  Within 7-10 years, I want to own enough cash-flowing rental properties to replace 90% of my income at my W2 job at which point I'd quit and continue to invest a large portion of that money into real estate. 

So I guess my questions are:

What else can I or should I be doing at this stage?

How can I accelerate my timeline without introducing a lot of financial risk? I currently have no liabilities other than rent and basic living expenses, and am willing to take on some calculated risks to speed things up, but I do still have a job and family to tend to, so I can't just start making large bets without a cash cushion in case something goes wrong. 

Thanks for all input and feel free to ask any clarifying questions! 

Just thought I would add, once my wife is working again, I expect us to be able to save enough for down payments on about two properties per year, at least at first.

Hi Everyone,

Josh from Austin, Texas here. Nice to meet ya'll. I recently relocated from Colorado, and found this site after listening to a few of the BP podcasts. I'm looking forward to learning a lot and hopefully making a few friends and building my network. 

A little about me - I am a happily married father of 2 girls and (coming soon) 1 boy. I currently work full time as a software engineer and my goal is to use real estate to enable me to quit the rat race within 10 years. My wife and I spent the last four years living in Colorado, making many of the typical bad money decisions like buying new cars, student loans, and maxing out credit cards. The one good decision we did make was buying a house in a hot neighborhood and leveraging the hell out of it with a tiny 3.5% down payment. We decided we'd had enough of living paycheck to paycheck that and hit the "reset" button by moving back to Texas. We sold our house in Colorado, and used the proceeds ($121k) to pay off every last cent of debt we had ($115k). We're at slightly above zero now, and going forward have lots of room in the monthly budget. We are committed to investing and growing wealth from here on. I'd welcome any comments or suggestions on our overall plan:

1. (Completed) Find new job(s) in Texas

2. (Completed) Sell house and pay off all debts

3. (In progress) Live in a rental and save like crazy for emergency fund plus a down payment for a reasonable primary residence

4. Buy primary residence at 10% down on a 15 year mortgage. We gotta live somewhere!

5. Turn on 401k deductions to meet company match, but no more.

6. Save up down payment plus additional emergency fun for a rental property at 20% down

7. Repeat step 6 until we own 5 rentals with positive cashflow. 

8. At this point, begin selling and trading up - sell whichever property has the lowest ROI, use cashflow and additional savings from our day jobs to buy into larger/higher cash flow properties. I am wary of taking on a large number of leveraged properties as I hear that's how most people who go bust get into trouble.

Nice to meet everyone!