From serving my country to serving my community

[Mike Faulkenberry]

Hi there,

I am here to learn plain and simple. I am in the U.S. Air Force currently deployed overseas, and I have been reading and listening everything I can get my hands on over here about investing in real estate. I am even reading the textbooks to take my exam for when I get back stateside. I have been in the military for 11 years now and want to apply what I have learned and what has been instilled in me from my military career to investing. I own my home, but I want a better home in a better neighborhood. I want to send my daughter to college, help out new home owners and help out my bank account. I am here to read and listen. I am here to network. I am here to learn. Anyone that can help me and point me in the right direction, I would truly appreciate anything you have.

[Kerry Baird]

We have grown our portfolio in a slow-and-steady manner, while living overseas.  We have used the tax-free income, family separation and hostile fire pay, and the 10% interest given to service members while deployed...all of these methods to build up down payments for rentals. We bought two owner occupied houses while living in the UK, as well as three in the States, all of which we moved into and improved while occupying the property. 

You have a number of choices to grow your net worth: you can sell the house you now occupy and use the proceeds to buy another.  You can rent the property out and buy another owner-occupied property with low down payment requirements.  If you sell and have equity, you can leverage funds received into a couple of other properties.  You can fix and resell houses for lump sums of money, and then buy some long term hold rentals.  We've done a bit of each of these.  

As for us, we went "wide" by buying a number of properties and will do "deep" by paying them off.  Our thought process is that 5 paid-off properties will replace the income lost when those retirement papers hit.  All the best~