First Purchase!
My wife and I made our first real estate move and purchased our first property ever!
I've been reading and getting my book smarts, but we both agreed that at some point we were just going to have to go for it and started learning via the school of experience. Thus, we decided to purchase a duplex near the University of Nevada, Reno. My wife works at the university so it's a great location for her and not a bad commute (by bike) for me to work. We plan to live in one unit and rent out a bedroom in that unit, and then rent out the entire other unit. The property is two 3-bed, 1-bath units. We've got an FHA loan, and took advantage of a Nevada Rural (??? Reno is definitely not rural but it qualifies...) Grant program that allows you to take a large "gift" towards closing costs and purchase price for a quarter point of interest over the life of the loan.
The property was in pretty good condition, and the land underneath it is really valuable. We bought it on MLS so we paid market value, but were okay with that going into the deal since we both wanted a place we would be okay living with for the next few years while getting some actual experience property managing and being land lords.
One prospect I'm REALLY excited about is the property is on a corner lot with a very large unused areas. Because of code in the City of Reno, I highly doubt there is any "developable" land left due to density restrictions and set-back requirements, however... I don't see any reason an attractive tiny house on wheels couldn't effectively make this property a triplex. I'll need to investigate that more, but it's an exciting thought.
We're already learning so much by actually owning the property, and my wife turns out to be a badass property manager (which is awesome, and I had no idea would be the case). I'm getting a lot more familiar with the financial side and comparing my pro forma to reality so I can get better at analyzing deals. When it comes time to start picking up purely investment properties, I think this duplex will have given us a little more knowledge and a little more experience that will be super beneficial.
It's been a lot of work no doubt to learn- spent 12 hours at the computer on one of the days this weekend to properly get all of our accounts set up and start tracking everything in our personal finance software- but it's well worth the effort. I see it as cost of admission to get in the game!
Rock on!