All Forum Posts by: Manda Gouvion

I've wanted to get into real estate for years. However my actual research of the nitty gritty details of investing have just begun. Finally the stars (or should I say $) are aligning and it's now a real option for my husband and I so I recently came across biggerpockets.com, their YouTube channel, bought their book and started reading it today as well as looked at other sources of information. I have to admit, it was a lot more fun dreaming about investment properties than now discovering soooo many legal details that are honestly pretty dang daunting right now. It's not going to stop me by any means, but I'm wondering.... Am I overthinking things? We've owned a house before as a primary residence so I've been introduced to I guess some things but this just seems to be another world. The law intimidates me. How do you stay focused and not worried you'll screw something up with the IRS?

My husband and I are literally 2 days into learning about investment properties and this was our exact initial plan. We live in Texas and are considering moving to North Carolina. BUT, not yet. We thought, "hey let's buy an investment property, rent it out until we're ready to move and then live in it when we decide we're ready to leave Texas!" So all of this information I've been reading in the comments has been extremely enlightening. I'm glad we're not planning to invest for another year (baby #2 on the way!) because I definitely have a lot to learn.

Thanks! I'm leaning towards having one 30 year mortgage for every 15 year mortgage that just breaks even. We hope to invest $20k in a new property every year (ish. that's definitely best case scenario) I ideally want the 15 year one paid off by the time my daughter is 18 and another the same when my son turns 18 so they can be a 100% profitable property once they (hopefully) enter college. I've used the rent calculator tool and watched many youtube videos to analyze the numbers. I went to school for accounting so the numbers game is my jam haha I can't wait to begin! Any major cons or mistakes you can warn me of? Like I said above, we have a year before we're going to start investing so I'm hoping to educate myself as much as possible!

Thank you all!! 

Taylor, you are so right! I'm learning more and more every second as I research. I'm in a stage of obsession currently haha 

Dmitriy, thank you! I feel super fortunate to come across this website and forum. I keep asking myself why everyone doesn't do this!? 

Damaso, We do have an investment plan! I don't know what kind of details we can discuss here and I also don't know what all I want to share but I will ask if you have any thoughts on 15 vs 30 year mortgages? That's our current debate. I like the idea of barely breaking even for 15 years but then having major rewards sooner vs immediate profit but super slow pay off. I guess I'm a little stuck on the Dave Ramsey lessons though because we've been following his stuff since we got married and paid off 40k debt in 3 years as well as bought our first home all thanks to him. But as far as investment properties, my husband says we should basically disregard what we've learned lol he really wants to do a 30 year mortgage. We plan to buy our first property in a year.

Hey there! I've been wanting to get into investment properties for years. My husband and I always talked about getting one property per child. Well now we have a one year old and another on the way so it's time to get down to business! I'm thrilled to learn all I can before we make an investment. Currently in TX the taxes feel to high to invest here so we're looking to do long distance. Just bought the book they suggested for long distance investing and plan to download it to my kindle tonight! Thoughts, suggestions and your story with long distance investing are welcome!!