All Forum Posts by: Ryan R

Thanks for the info gentlemen. I've already sent out the earnest money check so I hope the 7-unit building will be profitable for me, but I'll definitely take what you guys are telling me on my next purchases. I'd love to own a larger apartment complex or a mobile home park. Hopefully this property I'm going after isn't a headache and I'll have a good experience with it. I'll surely look into joining REAPs soon. Thanks!

Ryan

Thanks for all of the replies, I appreciate it!

@ Jeff - A 4-plex would be great to owner-occupy but most of them are very expensive near where I work. I've only seen one come up in my range and it was snapped up within 2 days, and even being on the fringes of what I can afford it needed a lot of work. I'll continue to keep an eye out though and even a duplex or house with MIL could be a great situation. I just got a 7-unit building in Chicago under contract and will be having the inspection next week, so I'm hoping that it will be a good start to my investing career. I'll keep looking for a 2-4 family property to owner occupy near my job until my real estate investments can cover all of my expenses.

@ Dale -Thanks a lot for the welcome and it's good to hear from you as well. I was thinking the same way, especially when I'm just starting out, that a multi-unit building will be my best bet so that one or two vacancies aren't killing me. After I own a few units, I might look more into SFR so that in the event they become vacant my other properties can pick up the slack. The 7-unit building I'm going after now only has one vacancy and the property manager is currently marketing the unit, so I should be in good shape if the deal goes through. The other leases are through August 2013.

I'm very thankful that I didn't trap myself in a personal home mortgage, and I was so close to doing it too. Somehow everything worked out the way it did and I've been interested in real estate and investing ever since. It's like a light switch got turned on in my brain and I can see the path of getting out of never ending employment and doing things that I want to do with my life. If I do get a personal home soon I'm definitely going to be looking for different things than I was the first time, such as multi-units or something that is undervalued and needs a lot of work. And I definitely won't buy it before I buy the assets that will pay for it.

Thanks for the info on the military, that's too bad that they don't follow up with those things as much as they used to.

Joining an REI group is a great idea. I don't know if the Kitsap group would be best for me because it would take me forever to drive to any of the meetings but the Bellevue location would be right up my alley. I'm definitely interested and it would be good to share knowledge and possibly work on some deals with other investors.

That's great that you're getting into MHPs. I've done some research on those as well and may be interested in investing in one in the future. It looks like the returns can be great, especially with the low taxes on many of the properties compared to the rental income. Have you purchased any MHPs yet?

Thanks again for the welcome and I look forward to meeting and learning from others on the site.

Ryan

Thanks for the suggestion Jean! That's definitely a possibility. Fort Lewis/McChord is a great source of renters.

Hello, I'm new to the site and to real-estate investing, although I've been reading, listening and researching for months now. I was looking for a house as a personal residence for the past year and in the midst of it all I realized that it is smarter for me to invest my money in real estate rather than in a house for myself. This constant searching and researching on the MLS also gave me a pretty good grasp on the market around here so I feel that the "unsuccessful" search was actually a blessing in disguise. I'm currently 31 years old and have lived in Washington state (Seattle/Bellevue/Tacoma area) all of my life. I'd like to get some advice as to what would be the smartest way to invest my money. My long-term goal is to generate enough cash-flow to not have to work a normal job to support my family and to be able to be involved in the things that I want to do with my life.

I currently have about $55k to use for investing and am thinking to either use it as a down payment on a 6 to 8 unit apartment building or on two 3 or 4 unit multi-family properties. The catch is that they would probably have to be out of state since multi-families (and properties in general) are pretty expensive around here and have mediocre cash-flow. I've met a couple of good agents out of state and have identified some good cash-flow properties, and am fairly certain that's the road I will take. The question I have is that I wonder if it would be smarter to keep my money and use it to finance flips here locally to build up my cash reserves, and then buy some multi-families while keeping enough capital to do more flips. I see deals quite often, even in the MLS that could generate a good profit. The downside I see to getting the multi-family properties is that I wouldn't have much to cover any extra should i not be able to secure full financing for flips, thus it would take me a while to build up my capital for another downpayment (albeit faster than before since I would have rental income from the investment properties to add to my earned income). I want to reach my goals as fast as possible, but at the same time I know that if I debate about it too much I'll be in analysis by paralysis. I've also thought about wholesaling as a means to build up capital for future downpayments too, so I guess that could be a good option.

Any good suggestions on what route to take would be greatly appreciated. Also, is there anyone in the area who would be willing to mentor or teach me the ropes with wholesaling or flipping? A joint venture flip would be interesting to me, or possibly to work as a bird-dog to earn my keep in exchange for some knowledge and experience. Just knowing a few fellow investors in the area would be great too. Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from some of you.

Ryan