What would you do with 10k?
I am a 30 yr old professional finish carpenter who has managed to scrounge 10k cash from my life savings. I've got extensive experience with rough carpentry, cabinetmaking, flooring, drywall, wiring, plumbing and am confident in my ability to inspect a residential property myself. I've also got a 6x10 trailer full of equipment and tools that can do just about anything I need them to. I just finished reading the Scher's wonderful book "Finding and Buying Your Place in the Country", thinking I was wanting to use the money toward a singular piece of property to call my own. But it dawned on me that I might take a few years to build up a profit-generating portfolio of properties to generate some income before doing so, to pay for more building materials and more of the cost of the land up front as well as providing a steady source of future revenue.
Is it unwise to buy many properties in disparate states, even if you get set up with a PM company? Should you stick to a relatively close radius?
I'd like to spend a few years driving to/seeking out good locales to buy property, putting in the work, hiring a PM co. and continuing on my way. But I'm imagining getting a call one day that I have to come out to Iowa or something from the West Coast to deal with something in court. I don't want to buy property where I live... I live in Humboldt County and it's a severely economically depressed region, with horror stories around every corner about the ravages of grow-ops on properties and endless seismic and damp issues.
My first property I would like to buy as close to out-right as possible. My limit is probably around 50k then, with 10 to spend on a down payment. I've also got decent credit to work with. Probably less if there needs to be any structural or code violation work done. I've seen properties for as low as 15k ready to buy up on sites like Zillow. What's up with that? Is that for real?
If I could do 2 or 3 of those in quick succession, I could really get it going... or not? I should clarify that I'm looking into single family residential properties. Any books you'd recommend? Next - or first - on my list are NOLO's legal and tax guides... anyone read them? I'm not interested in the "You can do it too!"/Be a millionaire! books... give me the driest, scariest, chock-full-of-warnings stuff you've got.
I want to get into this as a job, and I am fully prepared and able to do many aspects of it myself, including educating myself on the legal and tax issues. But what has been your experience, and what would you do with $10,000?