New Member/Investor St. Louis, Mo
Real Estate Broker · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2014 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
Hello my name is Ryan and I hope that you are all doing well. I am brand new to the real estate game and looking to dive in. I am young and hoping that will be to my advantage. I have been reading around this site as well as several blogs written by one of the other contributors here. I've read Rich Dad Poor Dad and a mentor/investor suggested Nothing Down for the 2000's.
I'm in kind of a strange middle ground. Being young I work full time and am married. We don't have a ton of money. I do have decent credit. However to our advantage we have no credit card debt, student loans, or car loans. My wife actually graduates undergraduate school this next week debt free!
I'm trying to learn as much as possible but I also want to get going as son as possible. I think analysis paralysis is what I want to avoid.
I'm open to any suggestions, tips, or recommendations.
See the agents BiggerPockets members work with in St. Louis, MO.
See agentsWelcome Ryan! The St. Louis region offers lots of areas of low and moderately priced real estate so you can start investing without needing lots of cash. North County Section 8 rentals and City are two of the biggest draws for long term buy and hold I am aware of. I stick to South City.
Since you're starting fresh, take a look at a Zip Code map and start finding areas that you are familiar with or think you would like to start working in. Then head to Realtor.com and start looking up housing prices to see if the price ranges will work for you. If your preferred areas don't work for what you can afford, start looking at nearby areas or just start picking areas. After finding the prices, start looking for rental amounts on Craigslist, Zillow or any of the other websites that have that information. Once you compare the rental rates to purchase costs, you may need to check other areas. When you do find a handful of Zip Codes to focus on, go drive them. Things can change block by block, especially in the city. Look for the major intersections or streets where things change so you can narrow your search criteria some more (West of Grand, South of 44, Dogtown neighborhood etc). At that point, if you could purchase a property (cash or financed), find an agent and start looking at properties. If you don't have enough to purchase a property, contact an agent and have them set you up to receive emails from the MLS of all properties that meet your requirements. I get automated daily emails of SFRs and Multis that meet my buying criteria. Look through all the listings, get familiar with prices. Go and look at properties, even if you just drive by and look in windows. With the email, you can mark Favorites and watch them. You can see how fast they go off the market and if you keep them on your Favorites once they are under contract, you can see how long it took to close and what it sold for. The goal is to have such a knowledge of the market that you know what is a good deal and know when to swoop in when one pops up.
Good Luck!
@Ryan Dossey welcome to the site
Thank you very much!
@Ryan Dossey Welcome to BP Ryan. Congrats to your wife for the 2 accomplishments, graduating from college and more importantly graduating debt free.
Read beginner's guide to real estate investing on the learn drop down tab.
check out the forums
be active in the forums
build relationships
Turn your car, gym time, walk time into podcast central and listen to them all.
@Christopher Hunter
I've actually been working my way through the Beginners Guide to Real Estate Investing. Thank you very much for the kind words. She is taking off a year between now and Grad School so a very exciting time for her indeed! I'm assuming under the Learn tab in the heading I can find all kinds of podcasts to dig through. That will give me something productive to do on my way to work.
Welcome Ryan! The St. Louis region offers lots of areas of low and moderately priced real estate so you can start investing without needing lots of cash. North County Section 8 rentals and City are two of the biggest draws for long term buy and hold I am aware of. I stick to South City.
Since you're starting fresh, take a look at a Zip Code map and start finding areas that you are familiar with or think you would like to start working in. Then head to Realtor.com and start looking up housing prices to see if the price ranges will work for you. If your preferred areas don't work for what you can afford, start looking at nearby areas or just start picking areas. After finding the prices, start looking for rental amounts on Craigslist, Zillow or any of the other websites that have that information. Once you compare the rental rates to purchase costs, you may need to check other areas. When you do find a handful of Zip Codes to focus on, go drive them. Things can change block by block, especially in the city. Look for the major intersections or streets where things change so you can narrow your search criteria some more (West of Grand, South of 44, Dogtown neighborhood etc). At that point, if you could purchase a property (cash or financed), find an agent and start looking at properties. If you don't have enough to purchase a property, contact an agent and have them set you up to receive emails from the MLS of all properties that meet your requirements. I get automated daily emails of SFRs and Multis that meet my buying criteria. Look through all the listings, get familiar with prices. Go and look at properties, even if you just drive by and look in windows. With the email, you can mark Favorites and watch them. You can see how fast they go off the market and if you keep them on your Favorites once they are under contract, you can see how long it took to close and what it sold for. The goal is to have such a knowledge of the market that you know what is a good deal and know when to swoop in when one pops up.
Good Luck!
Since you're starting fresh, take a look at a Zip Code map and start finding areas that you are familiar with or think you would like to start working in. Then head to Realtor.com and start looking up housing prices to see if the price ranges will work for you. If your preferred areas don't work for what you can afford, start looking at nearby areas or just start picking areas. After finding the prices, start looking for rental amounts on Craigslist, Zillow or any of the other websites that have that information. Once you compare the rental rates to purchase costs, you may need to check other areas. When you do find a handful of Zip Codes to focus on, go drive them. Things can change block by block, especially in the city. Look for the major intersections or streets where things change so you can narrow your search criteria some more (West of Grand, South of 44, Dogtown neighborhood etc). At that point, if you could purchase a property (cash or financed), find an agent and start looking at properties. If you don't have enough to purchase a property, contact an agent and have them set you up to receive emails from the MLS of all properties that meet your requirements. I get automated daily emails of SFRs and Multis that meet my buying criteria. Look through all the listings, get familiar with prices. Go and look at properties, even if you just drive by and look in windows. With the email, you can mark Favorites and watch them. You can see how fast they go off the market and if you keep them on your Favorites once they are under contract, you can see how long it took to close and what it sold for. The goal is to have such a knowledge of the market that you know what is a good deal and know when to swoop in when one pops up.
Good Luck!
That is excellent advice. Similar to what I've been thinking. Buying in the city and getting section 8's. I have a stable job so any money I make will be re invested. I appreciate the insight from someone familiar with my area. I've been looking at north as well as south city. Most multi families appear to be located in south city. Someone else said that I should look into the blogs on here about connecting with low equity owners just looking to get out. Subject to, owner finance, wholesale that type of situation. Thoughts on that?
Hey man welcome to the site! Where in the Stl are you looking at?
@Ryan Dossey welcome to BP, lots of great information around here, also you may want to consider one of the local REI groups.
I like the South Side Investment Club.
My experience is South City as I lived there for 10 years, but I have heard from people who do North County that you want to stay away from North City. Maybe that means there are big opportunities on the Northside but I will stick to what I know.
As far as the other strategies, I am sure they are fine but they are more work than I want to put in. To wholesale and find all of those other deals you have to constantly be searching for them and marketing and I don't want to go there. Others do great with it but it's not for me so you will have to decide at what level of involvement do you want to have in real estate.
If you want to go Section 8, I would go ahead and contact them for information. There is a County office and a City office. I tried contacting them years ago and it took about 4 months for them to call me back. Make sure you understand how it works. I've never utilized it but from what they explained to me when they did call me back, I have to find a Section 8 renter, screen them, and then apply for Section 8 and have the inspection and then they can move in. That could be a couple of months process to get someone in. Again, I'm not sure this is 100% correct but you should definitely start looking into it if that's the way you want to go or to figure out if that is the way you want to go or not. I may look into them in the future, but right now I'm not having a problem getting my properties rented without Section 8.
I just had a 4 bedroom 1 bath house that I advertised and my phone EXPLODED! Well over 100 calls and emails from CL & the Postlets syndication in 2 weeks. Probably 15-20 were looking for section 8 so that size house might be a hot commodity to look into.
I appreciate being welcomed with open arms.
As far as the area I am looking at goes I am very flexible. Honestly I'm just looking for a good 1st property that I can get cash flow started on. I've looked in Florissant at some SFR's. A few multi's in South City. I'm really open to suggestions as far as areas go. I want to avoid areas like Jennings for obvious reasons. I'm from the Saint Charles, Des Peres, Chesterfield area however these locations obviously are more expensive than I want to start with. Any guide lines or areas you guys would advice I check out or avoid?
I appreciate the run down on Section 8 I wasn't aware it was that big of a hassle. I would honestly like to not have to go that route in general. Sounds like more of a pain then anything. From what I've read they can also insist on a certain rent as well.
Welcome Ryan
I am a St Louis County investor in SFR'S but wish I would have started when I was much younger. If I was to start over, I would have looked at a duplex or 4 family in a good area (south city, ucity, maplewood, etc) and lived in one of the units and rented the remaining. This will allow someone else to pay my mortgage. After a year are two I would rent the unit that I was living in and move to another 2 or 4 family and repeat the process a few times. As a new investor I would stay out of anything that even approached a war zone (North City). Good luck!!
Hey Dan I really appreciate the advice. I'm 20 and figure I can only benefit starting out young. The sooner I get going the faster I can do this full time! The issue is that I work out in Saint Charles 63376 so would prefer not to have a 40min. long commute. My dad owns his own security system so any property I own will have that done.
@Ryan Dossey welcome and really happy to see you're starting to get educated at 20!
Welcome Ryan! As @Matt Inman suggested, check out the SouthSide Investors Club. Great group of people to surround yourself with. Investors, hard money lenders, agents, title company reps, lawyers, it's all there! They meet the second Thursday of every month. Next meeting is this coming up this Thursday. I actually invest in Illinois, but still drive over every month to hang out with like minded, investment thinking people. The focus of this month's meeting is Repair Costs. How to analyze what you need done and what it would cost for all the various issues you're most likely going to run into.
Just Google 'SouthSide Investors Club St. Louis' and it will link you to their info.
Thanks Joe! I know I'm younger then a good deal of guys but figure the sooner I get started the sooner I can work for myself. I will be a regular on here and hopefully will be able to help people myself.
I am definitely going to check out the South Side Investors Club I think that's a great local resource that I don't want to leave untapped. I appreciate the run down on schedule and topic James. If you don't mine me asking what area do you focus on in Il? Feel free to pm me if you prefer.
@Phillip Vincent I will definitely take you up on that offer.
@Ryan Dossey I'm focused on Madison County Illinois. I'm based out of Edwardsville and my main areas of focus are Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, and Collinsville, also doing a little bit in Alton and Troy, IL. Let me know if you decide to come out to the SSIC meeting this coming week. I'll be there and can meet up with you when you get there so you're not going into it solo. I think it's $10 for visitors to get in, but they supply free soda and pizza, so if nothing else, you get some food out of the deal. lol
I have friends in Illinois and have considered looking across the river but I want to start local first. I just figure that will be easier unless something I just can't pass up presents itself. If you could pm me the location and time I think I should be able to attend. I really appreciate your offer.
From what I've been reading/listening to I fully understand the 50%, 2%, and 70% concepts. What I'm curious about is in our area using say the 50% "litmus" test what is the average cashflow one should expect in our area? I understand that this is based off of mortgage, rent, and repairs/upkeep. More just curious for my own goal setting what is reasonable/safe.
Ie: I want to be able to quit my day job in ____ years. By generating an average cashflow of ____ a property I will replace my current income with ______ properties.
Hi Ryan, I am in a similar position to you; young, married, living in the STL Metro area and saving money to start investing in the next year or two.
I'd recommend listening to all the BP Podcasts starting with #1. Even the ones about Note Investing or Spec Builds that might not sound helpful to someone looking at buy and hold rentals have nice tidbits of information scattered throughout. I listen to many different podcasts on the way to work, at work, while mowing the lawn, making dinner. It's a great way to mainline information during what would otherwise be "down time" for your ears, lol.
I live in South City and have been looking at property listings the last couple months to get a grasp of the market while we save up cash. I set alerts on Zillow and http://www.stlouisrealestatesearch.com/. I get a daily e-mail and it's easy to check the new listings and price changes each day to get an idea of what's for sale, where, and for how much. If something looks interesting I'll plug it into a spreadsheet and see if the numbers would make sense.
I've lived in south city for 3 1/2 years. It took a while to get a good grasp of where the good neighborhoods start & end as it can be block-to-block in many cases. I'd recommend taking a Saturday afternoon drive to see it up close if you haven't spent much time down here. Write down what streets have a lot of inventory for sale and see if it feels like a place you'd feel comfortable living in and taking an evening stroll with your wife. I feel pretty comfortable out and about in ~60% of south city area, but some areas are quite sketchy. I personally try to avoid "state streets" (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming etc.) and most anything east of Grand Ave and/or south of Gravois.
I've spent a total of maybe 20 minutes north of Delmar Blvd. in 5 years living in the metro area; all of it trying to find a good place for a U-turn. North City & North County probably have great deals somewhere, but I wouldn't feel comfortable living there so I'm not even considering it.
Wish I could help with some practical advice based on experience, but I don't have any either! Good luck
Guys, I'm planning on attending this weeks (Thursday, May 8th) South Side Investment Club meeting. Let me know if you wanna meetup in person
Sounds good to me. I should be there right around 6, maybe a few minutes after.
Hey guys I will be there. Trying to get there as early as possible but my wife has some graduation ceremony that I have to attend before. I'll probably get there around 630 or so. (before home depot is done). Would that be all right?
also on the St. Louis area.
I have friends in Illinois and have considered looking across the river but I want to start local first. I just figure that will be easier unless something I just can't pass up presents itself.
From what I've been reading/listening to I fully understand the 50%, 2%, and 70% concepts. What I'm curious about is in our area using say the 50% "litmus" test what is the average cashflow one should expect in our area? I understand that this is based off of mortgage, rent, and repairs/upkeep. More just curious for my own goal setting what is reasonable/safe.
Ie: I want to be able to quit my day job in ____ years. By generating an average cashflow of ____ a property I will replace my current income with ______ properties.
Welcome to BP community @Ryan Dossey You came to the right place to learn all more about real estate investing! Here are a few recommendations for you:
Find and connect with other BP members that are in your area http://www.biggerpockets.com/meet
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Wishing you the best!