All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Depends on your team and tolerance for risk. If you have someone (agent, family, friends) on the ground that can facetime a property for you, and you hire a property manager, you should be able to invest from just about anywhere. 

Welcome Braden! I'm new to this city/market as well! It's a beautiful, exciting town that seems to be perfect for real estate investors! Hit me up if you ever want to meet for coffee and talk!

I can make websites. I have a bit of time right now. Let me know what you're looking for and I can show you what I've done, just shoot me a PM

Sent you a PM- my wife and I (married in July) have an extremely interesting situation that you might find intriguing for something like this.

Hi! My wife and I are moving to Charlotte on Feb 25th. We just sold our house in MN. We are visiting 1/28-1/31 and need an agent to help us find a house quick. Budget is around $150k and are looking to get a fixer upper. We could also do a rental but would only do a 2br house and 6 month lease max. 

Quick responses needed! We want to get the ball rolling Monday or Tuesday at the latest. This will be the only weekend were visiting so we want to spend all Saturday doing showings. 

Thanks! 

Matt Ruggiero

Hey guys!

This is going to be a long one, so bear with me here! 

My background is in engineering. I have worked at 3M in St. Paul MN for the last 3 years, and really enjoyed my job and made an amazing salary. I went through two different layoffs in the span of 6 months and the second one got me. I was let go even though I applied for two different patents, added $2.5M in new business to the division, helped 12 different divisions gain traction in my target market, and many other accomplishments. Now I'm not saying that I'm the best thing since sliced bread, but I am just absolutely sick of corporate America politics and lack of employee appreciation. I thought I did a great job and busted my *** for that company, yet my division was dissolved without any consideration for those within.

My wife and I just sold our house and will be moving to Charlotte NC as of February 24 (family reasons). She's an RN and already has a job lined up, but my job search has not gone as well. I've always been interested in real estate investing and have been told repetitively by family and friends that I am very well suited for the real estate industry. I am great with people and have worked with all different sorts of customers in the last few years, outgoing, innovative, a great technical writer, and already have a little small business that I started in April so I have a small business mind set. Since I am still getting a few payments from severance I think the risk is low and no better time than the present to get started in a RE career. I could put my project engineering skills to use in flips and contractor management. I am great with money. 

I would love to:

- Become a full licensed RE agent and buy/sell houses

- Buy 1 rental property per year

- Flip 1-2 houses per year

- Eventually buy an apartment complex

I would love some feedback to see what you guys think. Is this realistic? Does getting started take a very long time? There is a lot of pressure on my wife being the only money maker. Is that unfair to her to jump into this? Should I go back and get another salary job for a while until we get back on our feet? We plan on basically matching her income with expenses and have a large savings account and the money from the house sale, so we will be ok for a while.

Thanks for the feedback. As for Charlotte, we are looking for a $90k - $100k house with about $20-30k worth of work needed (bathrooms and kitchen prob) so that we can take out a 203K loan and live in it for the next year or two, then rent it out once we move. Any real estate agents out there that could hook us up with something like that? We have a quick turnaround and will be visiting 1/28-1/31 and can set up showing times. 

Thanks for reading this. It's a scary, exciting time....but I want to reach out to this awesome community and see what the gauge is here. Am I nuts? Selfish? Right on? 

I look forward to hearing back. Plus if you're interesting in helping us with our house purchase, please PM me. 

Matt Ruggiero

No I have a fully stocked "emergency fund" so that part is fine. I just have $1500 extra to invest and I don't feel like putting it into the stock market, as I have funds in there as well. And yeah my spread sheet does have HOA fees in there, as most have them and they range from $150-250 a month. Cash flows on these properties are estimated at $200-250 a month positive even with that fee in there.

Hey guys!

I've been living in the east St. Paul MN suburbs since Aug in my first house and love the area. We got a great deal on it, and I'm really excited with how everything turned out. Now I'm starting to see what equity is, tax benefits, and I started thinking...

I work at the corporate campus at 3M here in Maplewood and have made friends with a lot of out-of-town young professionals (23-28 y/o) and see a huge gap in available, nice, rentable housing options. I have looked with my REA at properties surrounding the corp campus that go for <$150k and most that come up are townhomes and condos (this area is pretty expensive, and rent doesn't increase as you increase the cost of a house, aka a $120k house can rent for the same $1300/month as a $200k SFR, so why pay $200k??). But being as I just bought my home and an engagement ring for my fiance, I would only have around $1500 to invest and am pretty cash poor. Plus, most of my savings is going toward a honeymoon and wedding expenses for next year.

Question is, is there a way for me to get started? Or should I wait until my "financial storm" blows over and start investing in a few years? I know the power of leverage RE brings and love the idea of starting with a partnership. I feel as though I have a great market to start in with an awesome target audience (I even know some HR people and could have an in finding great tenants). In my initial searches I have already found four potential townhomes that would be a great fit for my criteria and have run some initial numbers on them with a spreadsheet I created.

I am looking forward to any suggestions, comments, or ideas you guys may have. There is a ton of experience on this site and I would love to hear how to avoid mistakes or prevent something I can't handle right now. Or maybe there is a way to start using the power of this site. I personally feel as though I could bring a lot to the table, even if it isn't money (find properties, rent them with great tenants, manage them, etc).

Thanks!

Matt

I know an awesome real estate agent in the twin cities. Actually meeting with him tomorrow about investing. Shoot me a private message if you're interested in getting his contact info!

yeah I've seen online about the HOA allowing rentals thing so that's something I will keep in mind. And most rentals in the area I'm looking go for $1150-1350, so $130k Townhomes seem like a great fit. I've noticed that $200k houses still rent for similar values, so there seems to be a waste of money and a cutoff point there. My spread sheet says with a 30yr mortgage I would bet $210 a month and 15 year would be like $110. Not bad!