Rental Property Investor · Rutherford, NJ · Member since 2016 · 116 posts · 91 votes
Hello BP community!
My name is Alex Vlamis. Like many people here I read Rich Dad Poor Dad not that long ago and realized I've been doing it wrong for quite some time. I work on Wall Street in the mortgage securities business, structuring bonds for single family and LIHTC deals. I have an MBA in finance and am a CFA charterholder. Born and raised in NJ, and looking to get started by investing in the Kansas City suburbs.
I joined BiggerPockets to meet and learn from other investors and build up a network of agents, lenders, property managers and so forth. My ultimate goal is to be financially free by forty. I hope to achieve this with buy and hold cash flowing rentals. I am shooting to have 2-3 properties within the next year. I am primarily looking to get started in Independence, Blue Springs, and Lee's Summit suburbs of Kansas City and am looking to rent to young families. Anyway, I am looking forward to getting to know some of the community and am excited to dive into this next chapter of my life!
@Alex V. Well by all means keep doing your homework here on BP. I think you will find there is a great deal of discussion across a spectrum of views on buying turnkey vs. building your own team. One has to decide and weigh the risks vs rewards and largely that can depend on your interests and capacity as an investor. I do think that turnkey buying can be a good way to enter a market for an out of state investor, so long as you hook up with a really good provider including excellent PM. And in doing so, I highly recommend travel to the market and meeting with any you are considering including seeing their properties and rehab work.
Welcome to the site! I live in CA and invest in KC. I think your finance background will help you considerably. I still rue the day that I thought my accounting class in college was boring and I dropped it to take the pre-history of Southeast Asia!
Welcome Alex. I am in AZ and just started investing in KC also. Good to see you figured out the things no one tells you (i.e. Rich Dad Poor Dad stuff). I envy you. You will be retired by 40. Once I did figure it out, it only took me 3 years to retire. :-)
@Lee Ripma and @Barry H. I have a million questions I'd like to ask but still haven't quite figured out what the etiquette is on this site in terms of follow requests and direct messages. If you don't mind, I'd love to pick your brain about how you found your first properties and steps you took to finding the right people to work with.
Welcome to BP @Alex V.! Check out Using BP To Grow Your Business to get an idea of what the site has to offer. I know it's long, but if you're serious about your commitment to real estate investing take the time to read through the whole thing. It does an admirable job of describing one of my favorite features among many others: keyword alerts. Keyword alerts can go a long way towards having topics of interest to you delivered directly to your inbox and keeping you engaged, and engagement will bring you that much closer to success!
Additionally, do not underestimate the power of the search box at the top right of your screen. Many new members tend to ask questions that have been asked numerous times over and reap a fleck of the information that they could if they searched for their topic of interest first.
Lastly, the @ mentions feature is a fantastic resource to call your colleagues or other members already in a conversation. Simply type "@" and the person's name then click on their name and it pops up.
If you allow it, BP can be the ultimate resource in your pursuit of success in your real estate endeavors. Best of luck to you in your journey escaping the rat race!
@Larry Fried Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm still trying to figure that part out. It's actually the thing I really need to work on. I have considered going through a turnkey provider for my first property as a method of learning the ropes. But I am hoping to learn more about how to source deals through bigger pocket in both the guides and learning from experienced investors.
@Alex V. Well by all means keep doing your homework here on BP. I think you will find there is a great deal of discussion across a spectrum of views on buying turnkey vs. building your own team. One has to decide and weigh the risks vs rewards and largely that can depend on your interests and capacity as an investor. I do think that turnkey buying can be a good way to enter a market for an out of state investor, so long as you hook up with a really good provider including excellent PM. And in doing so, I highly recommend travel to the market and meeting with any you are considering including seeing their properties and rehab work.
Welcome @Alex V.. I'm a fellow wall streeter and new to Bigger pockets as well. PM me if you have any questions along the way and i can share what i have done so far.
@Alex V. is right on the money. Turnkey can be a great option, especially for people who live in pricey markets, but you definitely need to do your homework. There are pros and cons to both turnkey and self-assembling a team, and the option that's best for you largely depends on your current capacity for being actively involved with your investment. And, of course, the type of REI that's best for you now isn't the only type you can ever pursue. People's needs, goals, and capacities change over time, so just be brutally honest with yourself about what your current needs are with regard to time, energy, control, and risk.
If you elect the turnkey route, your due dilligence is the most important aspect of your investment. One upside of the turnkey route (and here I am referring only to true, full-service turnkey where all the aspects of the investment are managed and executed by one team) is that you only have to vet one company, rather than a bunch of different team members. However, the flip side of that is that if you get it wrong, there isn't just one cog in the machine that needs replacing. Full-service turnkey does have built-in incentive for the company to work in your best interest from day one (since, unlike an independent agent or contractor, they need to keep you happy long term, not just long enough to get their one-time payment), but it's still possible to end up with something that's a lot different in reality than it looks on paper.
The whole 'vetting turnkey providers' topic comes up a lot here on BP, so I won't ramble on about all the questions you should be asking. I'll just say that asking specific questions and expecting timely, data-backed answers is the best way to weed out the less scrupulous in the turnkey niche. And, when you narrow down your options, paying a visit to the market and the team - looking them in eye and seeing the product first-hand - is the best way to get peace of mind or clock unseen red flags. Consider it an investment in your investment ;)
My name is Alex Vlamis. Like many people here I read Rich Dad Poor Dad not that long ago and realized I've been doing it wrong for quite some time. I work on Wall Street in the mortgage securities business, structuring bonds for single family and LIHTC deals. I have an MBA in finance and am a CFA charterholder. Born and raised in NJ, and looking to get started by investing in the Kansas City suburbs.
I joined BiggerPockets to meet and learn from other investors and build up a network of agents, lenders, property managers and so forth. My ultimate goal is to be financially free by forty. I hope to achieve this with buy and hold cash flowing rentals. I am shooting to have 2-3 properties within the next year. I am primarily looking to get started in Independence, Blue Springs, and Lee's Summit suburbs of Kansas City and am looking to rent to young families. Anyway, I am looking forward to getting to know some of the community and am excited to dive into this next chapter of my life!
Regards,
Alex
Hello and welcome! This is a great place to get started with investments. I feel like I have heard a lot of KC lately. I wonder if it is getting over saturated with investors at this point...maybe not.
If you are investing out of state, I am assuming you will be going turnkey. Make sure to go with a true turnkey provider. A company that; owns, renovates, and manages the property. They do not just show you homes off of the MLS and try to get you to buy them.
@Larry Fried and @Clayton Mobley wow I am blown away by your detailed answers and help. I really appreciate it. I have been looking at turnkey because I currently work about 60-70 hours a week at my day job and am investing out of state. As you mentioned Clayton, this is just a temporary solution. I do plan on being more active in the investment process as I gain more experience. As both of you already mentioned as well, I would never purchase a property or land without seeing it first and vetting the property managers. Trust but verify, right?
Welcome, Alex! I also got my start (and life-changer) with Rich Dad Poor Dad and I also invest in turnkeys out-of-state since living in LA. Reach out anytime to any of us who might be of some help!
@Alex V. Yes! Trust but verify! Plus, once you verify the quality of the product and the trustworthiness of the people on that first investment, the whole 'trust' thing becomes a lot easier for subsequent investments with that provider.
Sounds like your work schedule really does dictate that you go the turnkey route for now - and you're definitely not alone in that. There's a reason the niche continues to flourish!
You're already in the right place to do your homework and get plenty of input from experienced investors, so don't be shy about reaching out and asking hard questions.
If you need any info on the Birmingham market, feel free to shoot me a PM any time.