New to real estate investing and excited to learn!
Hi Bigger Pockets!
I had posted this in the starting out forum but I wasn't sure where it should go so I'm posing here in the New Member Intorductions as well.
I've had this idea in my head for a couple years now about buying property and then renting all or part of it out in order to develop an alternative income stream and I just found out about the bigger pockets community a couple of months ago. I’ve been reading through the forums on a regular basis, I’ve read “Set for Life” recently, and I worked through creating my own rental calculator like Scott did in the book to try and better understand all of the money related aspects that go into a rental property. I also work full time as an Engineer and all-in-all I do enjoy it. My end goal is financial independence and my plan is to use my savings from my W2 job to invest in more passively managed real estate that will cash flow positive and build equity over time. I know that I have a lot to learn and that it’ll require quite a bit of effort and time, and I’m willing to do the work, but the problem is that I’m not really sure where I should go to learn more and how to get started now.
I've always been pretty frugal, and since I started working full time about two years ago I've saved up about 25k total toward a down payment. Unfortunately, I live in Long Beach, California and (even in Long Beach!) most of the real estate around here is way outside of my price range for doing the house hacking thing like Scott recommends in book. Working full time too, I don't really have a lot of time to spend renovating a SFR/condo/apartment (although I like working with my hands so I think I would learn a lot and enjoy doing it). I've also run through scenarios for house hacking in LB vs continuing to rent & buying out of state with numbers from Zillow and I think the best option for me is to invest in rentals out of state to take advantage of better cash flow markets. Since I'm new to all of this though and have a lot to learn I'm hungry for knowledge and I'd love to meet other people in the Long Beach/LA area who have done this successfully so that I can learn from them.
Does anyone have recommendations for real estate investor groups/meet ups in or near Long Beach, CA? Or is anyone in a similar position living in Long Beach or LA with out of state rentals and would be willing to meet up for a cup of coffee or something and talk about how you got started investing out of state?
Thanks! I'm looking forward to meeting more people and getting started myself!
-Henry