Beginning Investor in Silicon Valley: Introduction and Guidance

[Nelson Ogbuagu]

Hi BiggerPocketeers, 

My Name is Nelson. I've been lurking on the site for some time, and thought I'd introduce myself and where I am at in my Real Estate Journey after all this time. 

I am a 25 year old San Francisco resident, originally from the Chicagoland area. I currently work in B2B sales for a Silicon Valley Fortune 500 tech company. I've been loosely exploring real estate for a while, more recently taking my education and pursuit of it more seriously with a few recent life developments. As it stands today, I am debt free, on target to make 6 figures in my role, and have a bit of money saved. I'm looking to begin to establish a different method of generating income, and this is one of the avenues that's most interesting, and in lieu of much start-up building experience, the most widely documented introduction into entrepreneurship that I have found. 

Further context: my father, based in Chicago, is a landlord of a duplex property. Because of that, I've been drawn to multifamily properties as my property of choice. With that being said, to begin, I'd love the community's insight into the following: 

1. In terms of strategy, I've been looking more closely into buying and holding, and wholesaling. Given the expensive nature of San Francisco I was considering out of state. How feasible is that? What should I consider?

2. Under the notion that education is a regular part of this process, what are some other actionable steps that I could take to move forward. I just watched a webinar with Brandon for example, where he said to analyze 100 deals before jumping into one, and noted the calculators and realtor.com as ways of running analyses. What would be another action item, or a next step, if I were to consider Buy and Hold? What about wholesaling?

3. Any other pieces of advice, suggestions, or insights that may have risen to the surface as you read this post. I'm really trying to be a sponge throughout the process. Not looking to rush, but looking to move intentionally. 

Looking forward to connecting :) 

Cheers, 

Nelson

[Ali Boone]

Hi Nelson! Welcome to the site and the industry :)

I'd first encourage you to look at both buy-and-holds and wholesaling. Those are two entirely different things. You're kind of comparing apples and oatmeal if you're pondering both of those. Wholesaling, unfortunately, is a job. It's just not an investment strategy. It can teach you a ton about investing, but despite what people advertise, it's a job. I would be extremely leery on how wholesaling long-distance could work, but it could work just as easy as anywhere else as it could local to where you live. Buy-and-holds, on the other hand, are investments and can be done long-distance (and you can make the risk spectrum on those anything you want).

So, I would backtrack. Before trying to figure out all the logistics, I'd say to clarify for your goals first. Wholesaling and rentals accomplish two very different things. Flipping accomplishes something else. I'd say the easiest process would be to:

1. Clarify exactly what it is you want to accomplish through investing, and examine what resources you have currently at your disposal (capital, connections, etc.)
2. Explore each strategy and start to identify which one(s) might be most closely related to your goals (for example, if you want passive income that you don't have to put any time or effort into, wholesaling won't do that for you)
3. Then start to get into the logistics of how to make that strategy work

This is a really old article, but the ideas still apply-

https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/10/2...

The more you understand about your options, the better of decisions you can make and make them in a way that is most suited to your lifestyle, your goals, your resources, and everything else. If nothing else, it will help minimize risk when you understand enough about the strategy in order to make that decision too.