Novice Pre-investor Introduction

[Kevin Wilson]

Name: Kevin Wilson

Age: 39

Location: Oceanside, CA (San Diego County)

Career: Police Officer

School: MBA - Cal State San Marcos

Bacherlor’s Geography (Geographic Information Systems) - San Diego State University (Go Aztecs)

Current Home Owner, Father, Husband

Short-term goal: 1 Property.

I stumbled on Bigger Pockets about a week ago and love the podcast and material. Feel like I’m scratching the surface. I’ve been wanting to break into real estate investing for some time but seems to be just out of reach, especially in Southern California. Hoping for tips, tricks and insight on getting in at the ground level.

[John Corey]

Welcome Kevin.

It might be expensive where you live or work. Maybe there are other ways to make the dream happen. Lots of other ideas people are using. 

A bit of a story given your day job.

A guy who looked about your age had retired from the police and went full time in real estate investing. He had been investing for a while and made the leap. He moved to a lower cost area at some point. I do not know all the facts.

One thing I do know is he and his business partner purchased a run down, high risk MH park. The place definitely has some issues. Mostly things the two of them could deal with. One issue that was a bit different was the crime associated with drug dealing. One or more operating from the MH park.

Their solution was innovative. In the county where the MHP was located, the police were issued with a marked car which the officer would drive home at the end of the shift. The two owners allowed an officer to live, rent free, in exchange for having the cruiser parked in the driveway of the unit where the officer lived. Nothing else was expected. Just drive to work and drive home with the marked car. 

All the drug dealing moved away in short order.

None of the above was in the state of CA.

Good luck. Reach out when you need something. Just post a question or connect with people if you can not post the question.