Newbie in Lynchburg, VA

[Robert Fisher]

Hey BP, I am brand new to both BiggerPockets and real estate investing in general. I’ve done some research, read some books, took an online training course (wish I had found BP before spending the money on all of that), but have yet to make my first deal. I’m a work-from-home-Dad and I take care of our 1 year old during the day while my wife is at work and then I run my drafting and design during naptime and at night. Unfortunately, that has been contributing to the household income as much as I’d like so I’ve started looking into what my dad used to build wealth and support his retirement - real estate investing. I wish I would’ve found this place before investing time and money into other research, books and courses. But I’m here now and looking to get started soon

[Laura Tokgozoglu]

Hi Robert,

We are closing on our second property in Lynchburg next month. We live in South Carolina but our daughters go to school at Liberty. We like that there are opportunities to buy a 2 or 3br condo or townhouse and rent out each room to a student. The students are for the most part very responsible and good tenents, a little different from some college towns. We are not cash flowing as much as we would prefer because our priorities when looking were turnkey properties and we use a property management company ( Priority One) We break even after depreciation and also we took out a 15 year and 10 year mortgage as we are in our lat 50s and want to have the condos paid off sooner. If we had 30 year fixed and managed them ourselves we would defineately cash flow. Our Realtor is Mickey Hertzing and he is also an investor, very knowledgeable about the area. I also sell on Ebay to help fund our Real Estate purchases and I am grossing aver $4000.00 per month doing that. Netting about 2500.00. I  started doing Ebay about 4 months ago. Lynchburg seems to be growing and they are fixing up the downtown. I think it is a good solid place to invest and Liberty University is not going anywhere. I also think Lynchburg is a solid place to do Airbnb. There are never enough rooms for Liberty Graduation or other big events. Also several online students need short term (2 week-whole summer) rentals for practicums. If you even have a spare bedroom in your house that is something you could consider. We do Airbnb here in Aiken and get a nice side income on that too. Hope some of these ideas help!