I have always had this idea that I would spend my summers flipping houses to supplement my school year income, but the more I read and learned about REI, the more excited I became about the variety of possibilities.

Also, I would suggest visiting a variety of leading CFRE sites and doing due diligence: read the FAQs, sign up, view the investments being offered, call the companies and speak to their team.

Frequent lurker but haven't pulled the trigger yet due to some other things in my life.

Does this have to be a self directed IRA or can it be any variety?

Hello, my wife and I are newbie real estate investors from Livermore, CA.We are interested in a long-term buy-and-hold rental in our area (Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon) or perhaps the Sacramento area (Folsom, Rocklin, Roseville), since we make frequent visits there.  

I have seen different forms of this question and a variety of answers.

Apple Valley is a great place with variety of housing types.  

We even use the house for one week each August, so if we rented we would cash flow an additional $3,500, but for us, being able to use the house in the summer is more important than the extra money.There are many rental houses on the Cape and it does seem like most rent out frequently, it is important to have a differentiating characteristic about your house.  

The main benefit is that some Portfolio Lenders will not care how many financed properties you already own – however, most will place a limit on how many loans they will write for you, or how frequently they will lend to you.

Hi @Paul Hickey , I'm over here in Brevard County but I also work in Orlando pretty frequently.