That changed my average tenant stay to about 5 years.

I am here in So Cal also and have stayed away from investing in other areas because of the difficulty of managing and due diligance from afar.

I have held a small house for two months to get a great couple who stayed three years.

i work in northern va and let me tell you, there are tons of houses which means there's tons of potential deals. as far as getting started, here's what i'd do1. join a local investor group. there are 2 in VA. www.realestatecng.com meets in alexandria every monday and novareig meets in tysons. they always post their meetings on www.realestatecng.comthere's also another group that meets the 2nd saturday of every month in bowie. the group is awesome and the founder Sherman Ragland is very helpful when it comes to getting started.2. go to realinvestors.com and listen to the radio show's archives.3. pick an area you want to buy in. if i was considering VA i'd definitely consider market for foreclosures and expired listings. homes are high priced and are staying on the market longer. you could run across someone who may give you some good terms and put together a lease option4.

Lisiting the house for sale is usually free to so list it for what you need and see what happens or I would suggest avoiding that and For Sale By Owner so you stay off of MLS.

ok here it is . any insight will help. i love the idea about being in the real estate buss. for alot of reasons . i purchased my first home two years ago and did alot of work to it myself this is what i like doing on the side of being a full time chef, the house it probably worth 75 thousand more than when i purchased it . my question is should i do a little more work to it make it worth more and sale it to purchase a new one and so on or stay here and build more equity ?

Seems to me that post offices stay in the same place until their leases run out?

Are you suggesting I engage or develop a relationship with a buyer's agent on deals or to bring me deals s/he discovers or are you suggesting developing relationships with seller's agents to let you know when they have something for sale that might be of interest?

Another thing I would add: if you only plan on staying for a 9 month period then ask the landlord about a month-to-month lease.

I would like to marry her but dont know if I'd bet my house we'd stay together.I know this sounds cold and calculating, but when you hear stuff like "if we break up I wont get anything".