All Forum Posts by: Voley Martin

@Voley Martin

you said

"Eventually I definitely want to own my own LTR and STR's but I've got a big learning curve with that"

I'd argue that having an LTR that is managed by a property manager is infinitely simpler / way less learning curve than STR arbitrage

I'll ask you a direct question: do you have funds for a down payment and reserves?

It might be a good argument but I owned a house in Enterprise Alabama for almost 10 years. I bought it when I went to flight school for the army and kept it as a rental property. I ended up losing money every year until I was forced to sell it so that I could get a mortgage on my own home so I took a pretty big loss all things considered. I had no idea what I was doing and just considered it would be a good investment to have the property paid off in a number of years so I just kept it going until I was forced to sell. Now I look at things differently and will be really cautious before I purchase another home as a rental. Property management fees are really expensive and the cost of unforeseen maintenance is not minor either, and every time you have to pay closing costs- that's nothing to sneeze at!

My current home is now paid off, I have no debt either. My wife And I are on track to have at least 80k in savings by the end of the year, (We plan on keeping 50k as our emergency fund that should be able to pay all our bills for 6-12 months in case something happens). I can easily put 2k away every paycheck so we are doing well, I just want to be as smart as possible about this, and take my time to ease into it over the next year. I'll be retiring from the army next September and my responsibilities to the military have been slowly diminishing over this time, so I think I'm on a good course. Just need to keep at it and I appreciate you guys all commenting and giving me ideas. I'm all ears, but I have a plan and I'm committed! 

Arbitrage is a bad idea in your location. Don't make it worse.