Me and my wife are 27 looking to start investing in real estate

[Cody Cline]

Hi there, me and my wife currently own a small business and have 3 beautiful children in Redding ca. We are looking to start investing this year maybe early next with not a lot of money (20k) but we also have equity in our home. There are many investment loans and we are in need of help understanding which ones work in which situations . Iv been researching alot but I think we are in need of someone that’s been through this and does this stuff on the daily to help us understand the basics to investing smart and whether our area is a good place to even start or should we put our money elsewhere. I like that saying live where you want and invest where it makes sense I just wouldn’t know the first step to investing outside of my direct area. Sorry for the long post we have a lot of newbie questions thanks for reading. 
Cline Family 

[Julio Gonzalez]

Welcome to BiggerPockets, Cody! You came to the right place for information! 

[Nathan Murith]

Welcome @Cody Cline and the Cline Family!

Congratulations on reaching out and starting the work. You’re embarking on such a great journey!

We’ve been investing remotely from where we live for years. We also love to give back to the community and am happy to chat some more if you’d like to hear about our mistakes, wins, tips, tools, and resources.

Do not hesitate to reach out, connect, and DM me.

[Lindsey Tyler]

Hi Cody! 

My husband and I live in Redding, CA with 3 children as well! We are both licensed realtors (my husband is also a full time high school teacher) and we bought our first rental property in 2021! We've looked at multiple ways to make a deal work. There are so many possibilities. We still consider ourselves somewhat newbies as well, but we would love to connect with you and give any information we can!

[Cody Cline]

Thank you every one for the kind words. We are very excited to start and learn throughout this journey and it’s awesome to see a community of people like this helping others out. Thanks again!

Cline Family 

[Cody Cline]

Quote from @Carlos Valencia:

Hi Cody, 

Welcome to the BP Family. Theres definitely a lot of information out there that can cause analysis paralysis so be careful as it can be overwhelming. Its a great idea to speak to as many people on here about their experience and read other peoples success stories for guidance. Happy to connect and share some information on how to get 80%-100% of the financing for your next home. Feel free to DM. 

@Matthew Kwan @Albert Bui

Thanks so much Carlos!

[Patrick Mencel]

Cody, I was once in your shoes. My wife and I lived in the city with our toddler... had about $25,000.00 of liquid funds saved up and had a bunch of equity. We decided to take the plunge, refinance our house and pull enough equity to cover the closing costs and down payment on our next house. Now many investments later, we still rent out the first house and have paid the equity back. A lot of what you hear about analysis paralysis is true. Work with professionals and seek advice from the experienced. I live on the other side of the country but would be more than happy to discuss with you and help in anyway I can with your journey. 

[Scott Scoville]

Hey Cody, 

Congrat's and best of luck in your real estate journey. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about the Northern California real estate market.

[Jack Krusinski]

Hi Cody,

Glad you all are taking the first step! Out-of-state investing can be a long process, but the first step is to understand what goal you are trying to accomplish (Cash flow, appreciation, tax savings, a combination of them all?) and then identify the market that best meets your goals. 

[Noah Laker]

Quote from @Cody Cline:

Hi there, me and my wife currently own a small business and have 3 beautiful children in Redding ca. We are looking to start investing this year maybe early next with not a lot of money (20k) but we also have equity in our home. There are many investment loans and we are in need of help understanding which ones work in which situations . Iv been researching alot but I think we are in need of someone that’s been through this and does this stuff on the daily to help us understand the basics to investing smart and whether our area is a good place to even start or should we put our money elsewhere. I like that saying live where you want and invest where it makes sense I just wouldn’t know the first step to investing outside of my direct area. Sorry for the long post we have a lot of newbie questions thanks for reading. 
Cline Family 

 What's up guys, I'm a broker / investor here in Sacramento. We have over 100 listings on Airbnb and doing really well in Sacramento. Happy to consult and talk options if you're looking here. Growth has been consistent and this is where I'm personally investing. 

[Jared Trindade]

Quote from @Cody Cline:

Hi there, me and my wife currently own a small business and have 3 beautiful children in Redding ca. We are looking to start investing this year maybe early next with not a lot of money (20k) but we also have equity in our home. There are many investment loans and we are in need of help understanding which ones work in which situations . Iv been researching alot but I think we are in need of someone that’s been through this and does this stuff on the daily to help us understand the basics to investing smart and whether our area is a good place to even start or should we put our money elsewhere. I like that saying live where you want and invest where it makes sense I just wouldn’t know the first step to investing outside of my direct area. Sorry for the long post we have a lot of newbie questions thanks for reading. 
Cline Family 

Hey Cody, I am an agent that works exclusively with investors in the North Carolina markets. I work with many people who are out of state, and many from Cali. Would be happy to jump on a call with you anytime and give some insights into investing long distance if that is the route you are looking to take. 

As you are aware Cali is very expensive, and it may be possible to stretch your money further in other markets throughout the country. If you are going to tackle that challenge, the most important thing you need is a team. The right team; a communicative team, a hard working, and honest one. Connecting with people in markets across the country that you may find interesting, or simply just asking people where they are looking if not in Cali may give you direction on where to start looking. Once you have identified areas of interest, or people who may know about an area that you need to speak with, it's just doing the legwork. Making the calls, vetting the agents, vetting the GCs, vetting the Inspectors, vetting the PM, vetting the Attorney, typically once you've made a really solid connection with one of these people, they will be able to connect you to the rest. 

As the saying goes, "birds of a feather, flock together" - If you find a really great PM, or Agent, they likely take their referral process very serious as their name is attached (maybe not through legal liability), but just in the fact that they are mentioning someone they think may be worth the time. Reputation is everything in Real Estate, whether wholesaler, agent, or investor, or other professions related. So odds are you will likely get solid referrals once you find the first checkmark. 

As you are building your team it's crucial that you build it while setting expectations. Tell every single entity you use how you are expecting the business to go. Some people use contractual obligations to achieve this, others build relationships and the workmanship becomes well organized and extremely effective. Just make sure you don't drop the ball on conveying to the appropriate parties how you want things handled, and compromising appropriately where needed. 

That leads me to my final point about building a team, It's YOUR business, therefore it's YOUR team. Run your investing, just like you would run a business. Recruit your teams, fire them if needed, set expectations, do the work, make profit. Put your systems in place (and this is something that other investors/agents that work with investors, financial planners, Attorneys, CPAs can help you to do). Once you've got everything organized, a vetted team in place, it's a matter of finding the right deals at the right numbers. 

Sounds easy and super complex at the same time. Keep asking questions to your peers, making connections, watching videos, reading books and you can be in a position confidently in a few months where you may be ready to the trigger.  Try to avoid getting analysis paralysis though, it's easy to get into a mind set of "I still need to learn more before I am ready." While this may be true, the best time to invest was yesterday, so every day that is delayed in fear of not knowing is a day wasted. Don't rush into anything, but don't get cold feet when the time follow through presents itself. 

Hope there was some value in there for you, and anyone else who finds themself in a similar position. If you want to connect and chat ever, let me know! Happy to help anyone I can, like mentioned earlier- I am an agent in NC, but with this community I love to connect even if my services won't be relevant. 

Cheers!

[Cody Cline]

Quote from @Jared Trindade:

Quote from @Cody Cline:

Hi there, me and my wife currently own a small business and have 3 beautiful children in Redding ca. We are looking to start investing this year maybe early next with not a lot of money (20k) but we also have equity in our home. There are many investment loans and we are in need of help understanding which ones work in which situations . Iv been researching alot but I think we are in need of someone that’s been through this and does this stuff on the daily to help us understand the basics to investing smart and whether our area is a good place to even start or should we put our money elsewhere. I like that saying live where you want and invest where it makes sense I just wouldn’t know the first step to investing outside of my direct area. Sorry for the long post we have a lot of newbie questions thanks for reading. 
Cline Family 

Hey Cody, I am an agent that works exclusively with investors in the North Carolina markets. I work with many people who are out of state, and many from Cali. Would be happy to jump on a call with you anytime and give some insights into investing long distance if that is the route you are looking to take. 

As you are aware Cali is very expensive, and it may be possible to stretch your money further in other markets throughout the country. If you are going to tackle that challenge, the most important thing you need is a team. The right team; a communicative team, a hard working, and honest one. Connecting with people in markets across the country that you may find interesting, or simply just asking people where they are looking if not in Cali may give you direction on where to start looking. Once you have identified areas of interest, or people who may know about an area that you need to speak with, it's just doing the legwork. Making the calls, vetting the agents, vetting the GCs, vetting the Inspectors, vetting the PM, vetting the Attorney, typically once you've made a really solid connection with one of these people, they will be able to connect you to the rest. 

As the saying goes, "birds of a feather, flock together" - If you find a really great PM, or Agent, they likely take their referral process very serious as their name is attached (maybe not through legal liability), but just in the fact that they are mentioning someone they think may be worth the time. Reputation is everything in Real Estate, whether wholesaler, agent, or investor, or other professions related. So odds are you will likely get solid referrals once you find the first checkmark. 

As you are building your team it's crucial that you build it while setting expectations. Tell every single entity you use how you are expecting the business to go. Some people use contractual obligations to achieve this, others build relationships and the workmanship becomes well organized and extremely effective. Just make sure you don't drop the ball on conveying to the appropriate parties how you want things handled, and compromising appropriately where needed. 

That leads me to my final point about building a team, It's YOUR business, therefore it's YOUR team. Run your investing, just like you would run a business. Recruit your teams, fire them if needed, set expectations, do the work, make profit. Put your systems in place (and this is something that other investors/agents that work with investors, financial planners, Attorneys, CPAs can help you to do). Once you've got everything organized, a vetted team in place, it's a matter of finding the right deals at the right numbers. 

Sounds easy and super complex at the same time. Keep asking questions to your peers, making connections, watching videos, reading books and you can be in a position confidently in a few months where you may be ready to the trigger.  Try to avoid getting analysis paralysis though, it's easy to get into a mind set of "I still need to learn more before I am ready." While this may be true, the best time to invest was yesterday, so every day that is delayed in fear of not knowing is a day wasted. Don't rush into anything, but don't get cold feet when the time follow through presents itself. 

Hope there was some value in there for you, and anyone else who finds themself in a similar position. If you want to connect and chat ever, let me know! Happy to help anyone I can, like mentioned earlier- I am an agent in NC, but with this community I love to connect even if my services won't be relevant. 

Cheers!

Thanks Jared I appreciate the great advice and I’m definitely thinking out of my current market would be the best at least for the cash flow side of things with prices being what they are here. But I’d love to connect and pick your brain soon about the nc market and other markets you know about. We are thinking about starting out with a 4 plex or something like that we definitely want Multifamily. We will definitely be in touch thank you again for your time! 

[Dmitriy Fomichenko]

Welcome to BP @Cody Cline , It's great to have you here.

Good luck on your REI journey!