Globetrotting Rookie Investors

[Matthew Johnson]

Hello BP community,

Matt here. My wife Krista and I grew up and went to college in Chicago. We decided a few months ago that we needed to start investing in something. She said she would look at stocks, and I decided to research real estate. After many hours of HGTV and surfing Zillow, I stumbled onto the Beginners
Guide, which taught me that I knew nothing about real estate. BP has already been a wealth of knowledge from learning the terminology to beginning to understanding the different types of real estate investment available to putting together the steps and planning for purchasing a property. My wife didn’t get very far with the stocks, so we have decided to focus on real estate.

Many of the articles I have read suggest starting to invest where you are and what you know. We have decided to start with the buy and hold because we spent a lot of time as renters. My wife wants to invest in Chicago and target college students (UIC where we went, IIT, Loyola, etc). I agree with her in targeting college students, but I am apprehensive about investing in Chicago, particularly because it is located in Crook County. I have seen that Chicago has a large presence on BP, so I wanted to get some Chicago investors thoughts about buying in Chicago and dealing with the city.

Another obstacle that we are trying to overcome is the fact that we travel almost full time for her job. We have spent a good amount of time living in Russia, China, Singapore, Mexico, Israel, Houston, Pittsburgh, and New Orleans in the last year (My picture is from Omsk, Russia last Oct…I thought Chicago winters were cold). It’s nice because her company pays for most of our expenses and we are DINKs (dual income, no kids) so we have the ability to raise capital pretty quickly. Unfortunately, while we are based in Chicago (Des Plaines specifically), we never know how long we are going to be in town, where we are going next, and how long we will be there. My
guess is that is going to make it difficult to obtain property and keep on top
of the property managers. I know there are a lot of military investors on BP so does anyone have tips or trick to being a traveling beginner investor?

Thank you for reading my post and I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Matt…

[Account Closed]

@Matthew Johnson - There are ups and downs in being a landlord anywhere. I am in Chicago. I tend to agree that Chicago isn't the best place to hold a rental, but some work great. Comes down to location and how well you screen your tenant.

You also need to be extremely well versed in the Chicago Landlord Tenant Ordinance. This changes annually and is pretty intense on its regulations. Be sure you know that in and out.

As to your plan to invest near colleges/universities.. there are plenty in the greater Chicago area that aren't in "Crook" county. Ever thought of shifting the focus to those areas?