All Forum Posts by: Morgan McConnell

@Anthony Aguilar I've been in the Marine Corps for 12 years now and I've used the VA loan 3 times now. It does have to be your primary residence when you buy it but that doesn't prevent you from keeping it once you PCS to a new location. I bought my first place in FL and then got orders to CA 8 months later. My wife and I kept it as a rental for 3 years while also using the VA loan to buy another house in CA. We sold both of them a few years ago and made about $35k on each due to appreciation. I wish we would have kept them but the capital we made helped us pay off some bad debt. San Diego is a tough market but I would highly recommend buying something cheap so you can do a live in flip and either keep it as a rental when you PCS/ get out or sell it and use the profits to fund your next investment. Send me a message if you have any other questions!

@Robb Almy

I definitely will, thank you! I’m looking forward to it!

I really appreciate all of your responses! You guys have convinced me; I will continue to educate myself while chipping away at my debt. Once we have the debt under control and saved up six months of expenses, I’ll turn my focus towards RE investing. I guess I’m just excited and want to get started already. Thank you all for the great advice!

@William A.

I actually started with Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover and then I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Both of those books are what got me interested in REI. I'm working on my debt snowball right now. I know I have a lot of learning ahead of me but I enjoy reading. I just finished "How to Invest in Real Estate" by Josh Dorkin and Brandon Turner and "The Loopholes of Real Estate" by Garret Sutton. I just got the "Book on Flipping Houses" by J Scott and "Set for Life" by Scott Trench. If you have any other recommendations, I'd love to hear them!

@Stuart Grazier

I appreciate the book recommendation! I love reading and I will definitely check it out. And I agree, I need to get my finances right before getting into this. I’m glad I posted this question, I was honestly nervous to post here because I feel pretty inexperienced compared to some of you guys in this realm.

@Darius Kellar

You’re absolutely right. After reading everyone’s input, I think that’s where I’ll start. First focus on getting my finances right and then work on buying a couple of rentals. I think I may have been putting the horse before the carriage with my idea about jumping into flipping houses first. I appreciate all you guys talking some sense into me!

@Mike M.

Thanks again Mike, we're in escrow on a new build about 20 minutes west of Fredericksburg as our primary. I'm really interested in that area because of the amount of growth happening over right now. It'd be nice to get something as our primary and hang onto it long term. A lot of guys in the military just buy houses with the VA loan, keep them for 3-4 years and sell them. Just a had a buddy that did it and make $175k in San Diego. Not bad a bad payday but I'd like to keep mine as a long term rental.

@Dan Heuschele

Thanks for taking the time to give me some perspective. It's one thing to read an analytical book about flipping houses and another thing to hear the cold hard truth from people doing it. I think you and everyone else here have convinced me to ease into this and educate myself further. I think that along with getting my finances right will make the wife a little more comfortable with this whole REI thing. We got pretty lucky with buying and selling with the VA loan. Made $30k on both of the houses we bought and put nothing down on them. Kept one as a rental for a few years and the other as our primary, sold them both last summer. With that kind of "success" early on, it's kind of hard to keep my excitement contained. I know a lot of people here think that $60k is peanuts but for a military guy on a modest paycheck, that was pretty good for us. But I know I need to learn more before getting into this game.

@Mike M.

That's a great point, my kids are 4 and 6 so they're not helping with a flip anytime soon. But my wife stays home with the kids too. So I suppose her need for financial security is something I should validate. I'm actually in the military (been in almost 11 years) so I have pretty good job security and decent pay. And we move a lot. We're actually moving to Quantico, VA next month. I want to get started on my REI venture once we get settled out there.

@Mike M.

Wow, thanks for putting up the numbers! I just picked up J Scott's book on flipping houses. I honestly don't know a lot about flipping but I plan on learning as much as I can before getting started. I'm really interested in the BRRR thing but I also want to get us out of debt faster so that I can focus on long-term deals. Cash flowing $200 a month won't help me get out of debt much faster than driving Uber on the side (which I'm already doing). I would rather invest my time/ money into something I really care about (real estate). I appreciate the information!