Starting Out in the Real Estate World & Seeking Advice

[Brett Francoeur]

Hello BP, I am a 20 year old student based out of the Seattle area. I am very interested in getting my foot in the door with real estate investing. I am working full time and saving frugally. I have several thousand dollars saved (and counting). I have low expenses as I am living with parents. I am interested in House Hacking, or buying a "fixer upper" home and getting it rent ready. I have quite a bit of experience in construction so I could probably do a lot of the renovation work myself. Anyways, my main problem is the Seattle area is so darn expensive! I am looking at the surrounding areas too but wouldn't know the best area. Any recommendations? Thanks!

[Michael Haas]

Lots of good advice here @Brett Francoeur - definitely don’t write off Seattle, house hacking here in South-central seattle has been extremely profitable for us. We have 6 properties in Seattle now and would never have scaled so quickly without the house hacking strategy.  

Where do you work? With traffic as bad as it is in Seattle you really don’t want to house hack in an outlying area of it means a 1 hour commute- time is money, especially if you’re handy and can Rehab your properties yourself!

PS: definitely read @Craig Curelop ‘s book “house Hacking”- it’s a great overview to get you started in the right direction. If I read that book before I got started I bet I’d have 10 properties now instead of 6!