My name is Kevin Santos - and I nearly can call myself an investor in the central NJ area. I'm in the process of closing on my first property, an REO townhouse 2 bed 2 bath. It's an attached attached PUD (planned unit development), so the rules with the HOA are a bit different. Has "Sandy" damage, but went in with Jay Scott's book Estimating Rehab Costs and was within 2,000 of the estimate costs I got from a contractor. We actually estimated high, but here's what I anticipate the the numbers to look like, roughly.

Purchase Price - 170,000

Rehab costs - 30-35,000

ARV - 260-270,000

HOA - $75 a month. Covers snow removal, lawn maintenance.

Not bad for my first one?

To get the ARV I looked at the most recent unit that sold. They are all very similar, and the unit just 2 over from the one I have under contract just sold for 250K cash a few months ago.

I plan on using an FHA 203K streamline loan to pay for the rehab (mostly first floor), and use Youtube and learn how to do some other updating myself.

I was originally looking for a multifamily for my first property, wanted to "house hack" and live free, but this was a bit of a compromise that worked for me and my girlfriend. I plan to jump right into another once this is done.

As for my future goals, I'm not entirely sure just want. At the very least, I want to get to the point where I wouldn't have to work, if I didn't want to. However, I work full-time in sales for a travel company, and am fortunate because I am paid to travel a few times a year. My interest in real estate only began to develop in the early part of the year, and the overwhelming majority of my learning has been on BiggerPockets, which I'm very thankful to have found!

I decided for me it makes more sense to get a salesperson license as well. I'm about 2 weeks away from having an active license and this should help me going forward as well. I don't plan to shift into real estate full time - but a year ago I didn't think I'd be buying my first property, either.

I look forward to meeting people on the site and continuing to learn.

Kev