Newbie from Trondheim, Norway

[Tore Thornæs]

Hello world!

My name is Tore, and I'm totally new to the whole real estate game. I'm here to learn.

About:
Name: Frank Tore Thornæs, you can call me "Tore".
Age: 28
From: Trondheim, Norway
Job: Incident Manager, for a retail systems software company

I'm basically a nerd with a passion for FinTech, finance, investing and politics.

My "finance hobby" started with Cryptocurrency mining in early 2013, and I've been invested in Bitcoin ever since.

How did I get into real estate?
I've been struggling to get enough money for a downpayment for years, and I was finally able to buy my first (unbuilt) apartment in september 2015, with money made from bitcoin mining.

My original plan was to live in this apartment myself, I never had any plans to rent it out.

As you guys probably know, things don't always go as planned. I ended up getting a new job during the time the apartment was being built. And I moved to Svalbard for a while, 1000 miles away from the apartment, so I obviously needed to rent it out from when it was finished in september 2016.

A couple of months later I moved back to Trondheim, and because I already had tenants (which I didn't want to throw out) I ended up moving back home with my mother.

This is the moment I realized I was in a good position to get into real estate investing:

• I'm living at home, rent free
• My mortgage has a fixed rate at 1,7% for the next 5 years and I don't have to pay installments (I only pay the rate)
• The apartment has increased 36.000$ in value since I bought it

Because I only pay the fixed rate on my mortgage, the apartment gives me an extra 650$ cash flow each month. And because I live at home for free, I'm able to save/invest 3.000$ / month.

The money I'm saving up is going to be used for a downpayment to buy my next apartment. (I can't live at home forever lol)

I need a minimum of 50.000$ for the next downpayment, which will take me about 13 months to save up (I've already saved some).

My plan:

• Buy apartment number two in 2018.
• Refinance both mortgages in 2020, and buy 2 new apartments. This should be possible given an 5% annual increase in real estate prices.

So I guess thats my story, feel free to ask me anything.
And, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Tore