Zero to Four Units in Two Years

Just a reminder, not everyone goes from 0 to to 24 units in their first six months, and that's ok. Today is my two-year anniversary of signing up for a BiggerPockets account. I signed up for a BiggerPockets account on January 18, 2016, after a friend suggested I head over here to start learning about real estate investing.

Actually, that's not entirely true. A few months prior, my friend had told that he was in a better financial situation than I was, even though he wasn't contributing to his 401(k), where I was putting in the maximum. "I'm 27 and I own 7 houses that other people are paying for" he told me. I was skeptical, but intrigued, though I put the idea out of my mind for a few months.

A few months later, the startup I had just joined (I'm a software engineer) was absolutely terrible. I thought it would be fun to join an early-stage company with only 6 other employees. Unfortunately, I learned very quickly that they were absolutely terrible people to work for and I hated my job after the first few weeks (this was my third startup, so I thought I knew what I was doing). Then my interest in real estate investing was rekindled after having stumbled across that perennial favorite book, Rich Dad Poor Dad. Miserable with my job at the time, I tore through it and decided I needed to get me some income-producing assets, not the liabilities I had been acquiring.

Then I remembered Dan.

After a quick conversation with him, I found myself on BiggerPockets looking around. I started with A Beginner's Introduction to Real Estate Investing, which was my first introduction to the Brandon Turner. Over the course of two weeks I watched all of the lessons and absorbed a lot. There were a couple of real estate investing meetups in the area and I even went to a few - one in particular, I got to meet J. Scott and I won a copy of his book, The Book on Flipping Houses.

What Happened Next

I was particularly keen on the idea of house hacking, though living and working in Washington DC, that was difficult. Small multifamily properties were hard to come by, and the ones that were available tended to be in pretty awful neighborhoods, way outside of my price range, or they sold too quickly and over asking because developers buy them and turn them into condos.

Around this time, after only four months with the startup from hell, I was looking for a new job. This time I decided to look both locally and across the country. I had a bunch of remote job interviews from the left coast to the right, and a few places in between. There was one company in the middle of the country that I even considered sending my resume to - BiggerPockets was hiring a software engineer or two, though in the end I didn't because a really cool opportunity with my now current employer presented itself and piqued my interest. This place, a research university in the middle of nowhere in the middle of New York state was ideal: drastically lower cost of living, similar salary to what I was making in DC, great benefits, fun team, making software tools for scientists, yadda yadda yadda, but also - importantly - lots and lots of relatively inexpensive multifamily properties.

I moved in early June to Ithaca into a temporary sublet. Within a few weeks I had rented my condo in DC to a really nice graduate student and her husband (after having listened to audiobook version of The Book on Managing Rental Properties by the Heather and Brandon Turner). My first rental property! By late July, I had an offer in on a duplex about 20 minutes drive from work, and in late October I closed and moved in with an inherited set of tenants (who have been awesome) in the other unit.

Fast forward a year and my tenants in my DC condo decided to move on, so rather than rent it again, I opted to sell it and take advantage of the Section 121 capital gains exclusion since the property had gone up in value (and I had lived there more than two years). I used the proceeds and money I have been saving by house hacking to purchase and fix up another duplex a few blocks away from my own home. After minor rehab, I've rented it out and it cash flows nicely.

Where do I go from here?

Monday I go to close on the purchase of my first flip project. I'm partnering on the deal with another real estate investor in the area and I hope to learn a lot. I'll post about the experience there as it progresses. My plan is to take the proceeds and put them towards my next buy and hold property. Or another flip.

We shall see.

Stay tuned!