All Forum Posts by: Matthew Gunderson

Quote from @Steven Foster Wilson:

Hey Matt, welcome to BiggerPockets! FHA would be a great starting point, talk with local lenders about their first time home buyer programs, some have 0% down, no PMI, etc. You could do house hacking to have your tenants to pay for your mortgage. This can allow you to get started with appreciation and cashflow with very little down, you can even BRRRR it like I did if you add value!

Here are some of my favorite books that you might find useful as well:
"Million Dollar RE Agent" by Gary Keller,
"Million dollar investor" by Gary Keller
"The Abcs of Commercial Real Estate investing" by Ken McElroy

These are amazing and helpful guides that will steer you to a successful real estate business. Best of luck!

Steven thanks for reaching out so quickly! Nice to meet you.   Hindsight is always 20/20, but I wish I had known about house hacking when I was in my 20s!  However I did get a bit lucky as my first home was a "steal", I bought a foreclosed fixer-upper back in 2007, and we recently sold it for double the price.  We have a primarily residence now, so I'm not sure that the FHA route will work, but I'll certainly explore it further.

Hello BP Community,

My name is Matt Gunderson and I live in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area in Eastern Iowa.  My wife and I have lived here for about 18 years.  We have yet to buy our first rental property, but we're focused hard on getting that first one this year.

Professionally, I work for an large aerospace/defense company in supply chain, and consider myself lucky that I love what I do.  I'm also a commercial pilot & flight instructor, and run a Cirrus aircraft flying club based at the Cedar Rapids airport.  And then I also do a fair amount of crowdsourced real estate investing, as well as stocks and commodities.  Needless to say I like to be busy!

Interestingly, crowdsourced real estate investing is what has really pushed me into wanting to own/manage my own rental property.  While the returns have been pretty good, there are limited tax benefits, leveraging against the assets is very difficult, and I have no control over the investment/operational decisions.   Plus I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit, so getting into rental property just seems like the next logical step.  

I've been reading a ton of real estate books, listening to a ton of BP podcasts, and I've started building my real estate network locally.  I've been lurking on the forums but thought I'd put myself out there and introduce myself in case there are others that would like to connect.

Looking forward to meeting more of you!

Matt