Michigan Noob

[Michael S.]

Hello Everyone! My name is Mike. I have bounced in and out of the Bigger Pockets community a bit over the years and now I am ready to start seriously looking at investing in real estate.

I work mostly in Detroit but live in the northern burbs and travel the I75 corridor daily. There seems to be large variety of options looking at the whole Metro Detroit area and I am having a difficult time finding a good place to start and focus. I think that my current preference would be more towards the buy and hold strategy utilizing a property manager but I do not know if that is feasible or the best place to start.

I am looking for opinions on where would you start with the following constraints?

1. $10k-$15k starting budget

2. limited but somewhat flexible schedule

3. prefer to stay in South East Michigan for learning close to home

[Jeff Rabinowitz]

@Michael S. , we are fortunate to have many REIAs (real estate investor associations) in SE Mich. They are great places to meet other investors. Most meet once monthly and can be found easily with a search of BP or the web. Some are: Renegade Detroit Investors (meets in Berkley, 1st Tuesday of the month). MREI (meets in Troy, 3rd? Thursday). REIA of Oakland (meets in Madison Hts, 2nd Thursday), REIAs in Macomb, Novi, Detroit, etc., also a meetup group formed from BP members (look up Tom A.). Most meetings have low fees, some are free for the first visit--the BP group never has a fee. If you attend don't worry about the topic (if there is one). Make sure you actually talk to some of the others attending--that is the best benefit.