The cheap prices, rapid growth, proximity to large cities, and lying right of I-40 gives it the perfect position to be the city outside the cities.

I think a great way to begin using BP is to read the Bigger Pockets Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Real Estate Investing as Josh and Brandon did a great job with it.And now that you're here we'd love to see you be an active member of the BP community so be sure to set up Keywords Alerts for your local area such as "Grand Rapids" or "duplex" if you're looking to find potential opportunities for investing, education in a subject, or other members in your area.

This site will be an invaluable resource for you also as the number of members in our area continues to grow rapidly.

Rents are dropping rapidly in the city, largely due to the high level of crime.

So what the idea would be is this...purchase a rental property and then funnel it's cash flow back into its 1st lien HELOC (no mortgage here) to quickly build up equity in it, reduce its monthly payment, and provide future funding for another rental property or continue with the rapid payoff schedule if you don't want to get over-extended.

If you want to expand rapidly you pull as much equity as you can out of properties and keep payments low so you can use extra money to buy more units. 

I am a Grand Rapids area investor and am tired of competing with 20 other offers on multi family houses and the margins are getting slimmer and slimmer on rentals in the area.  

Will that stop the boom in SF, where you'd think given the long time political climate, it would be the type of place that might try to stop these rapidly escalating prices?

It is far better to stay vacant, wait for a month and go without a month's rent than it is to take a non performing tenant and have to manage a rapidly deteriorating bad tenant situation.  

Hi,I am looking into rolling over money from my 403b to a self directed IRA.  Does anyone have experience with anyone here in town?  I would like to use someone local instead of an online organization.