Hey there everyone!!!! My name is Cristobal Gasca but people usually just call me Cris. I'm From Kalamazoo, MI and looking to get into buy and hold investing. I've been interested in rentals for a while and just finished paying off my student loans so I figured now is the best time to start investing. I've been reading a few books and lurking BP for a couple weeks now. I'm currently saving up a down payment and getting in as much knowledge as possible. From what I've been reading my best option is to get a duplex and live in it while I rent out the other half, which I can totally do. Hope BP can help me out on achieving my goal. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!!!

Originally posted by @Cristobal Gasca :

Hey there everyone!!!! My name is Cristobal Gasca but people usually just call me Cris. I'm From Kalamazoo, MI and looking to get into buy and hold investing. I've been interested in rentals for a while and just finished paying off my student loans so I figured now is the best time to start investing. I've been reading a few books and lurking BP for a couple weeks now. I'm currently saving up a down payment and getting in as much knowledge as possible. From what I've been reading my best option is to get a duplex and live in it while I rent out the other half, which I can totally do. Hope BP can help me out on achieving my goal. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!!!!

 Welcome to the site!

@James Wise Thanks

Hello @Cristobal Gasca , welcome to the site! It's great to have you here. Seeya around!

Hey, Cristobal! I'm here in Kalamazoo as well and looking to jump into real estate in the coming months. Let me know how your duplex shopping goes. I have a couple of pointers that may be of value to this region as well. One, there are a LOT of investors in the Kalamazoo/Portage area. I would suggest, if you plan on using a property management company, to reach out to whichever one you choose and let them know you're looking for investors that are retiring from the business. Tell them "I plan on using you guys for property management, so if you have anyone that's about to sell I'd love to option into the property and continue using your service." This works amazingly in this area, and I have a property company actively contacting their owners right not to find a triplex for me. It works really well, because you can basically hack a start out investing team for 0 dollars. Let me know how things progress! Good luck!

@Kyler Cook

Hey there Kyler, I just closed on a SFR. I was looking for a multi-unit but they are going so fast right now and this deal poped up so I took it. I plan on doing some updates to this one, refinancing and hopefully being able to pull some money out of it to get a down payment for my next rental. What management company are you planing to work with? Also I plan on managing my first few properties, until I can bite the cost of paying for them to be managed.