Hello everyone,

I am looking for any advice on how to get into the investment side of real estate in the Atlanta area. I recently came back from deployment, so I am starting my real estate business back up. Assuming that I get deployed again in the future, having some investments will help me to earn passive income while I'm gone. What advice would you give to yourself if you were just starting out?

@Carrington Allen when I came back from deployment I bought a 4 plex I was living in, then I started buying single family homes. 

Hindsight, I should have stayed with multifamily buildings because you can scale faster, and lower your risk.

If your tenant in a single family doesn't pay you have to cover the mortgage. 

In the 4 plex it took 3 of 4 tenants to cover the mortgage and expenses. Now some 15 years later because of rent increases it now takes 1 of 4 to cover the expenses and the property has appreciated at a faster rate than the single family homes.   

My advice would be buy and  hold multifamily. 

Agree with @Carl Millsap here. You might also able to use your VA loan. Talk to your lender and see how much you can get approved for will be a good start.

Originally posted by @Carrington Allen :

Hello everyone,

I am looking for any advice on how to get into the investment side of real estate in the Atlanta area. I recently came back from deployment, so I am starting my real estate business back up. Assuming that I get deployed again in the future, having some investments will help me to earn passive income while I'm gone. What advice would you give to yourself if you were just starting out?

Carrington, awesome that you joined!

@Carrington Allen

You have some awesome suggestions already and I agree with @Jingru Sui and @Carl Millsap . VA loans are AMAZING!!! They are a bit less attractive to sellers, so plan on that when you make an offer (realizing that you'll likely want to offer a bit more than if you were conventional so you have a chance to beat out the competition.). How quickly are you wanting to buy and in what areas? I've seen several small multifamilies come on the market lately. Have you nailed down the areas you're looking in?

Carrington thank you for your service, im recently looking to invest in Atlanta as well. Ill be doing it out of state from WY and would love to network with you.