My First Rental Purchase

[John Waterhouse]

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) buy & hold investment in Abilene.

Purchase price: $53,500

This was my first investment property. I initially bought this with the idea of living in one side of the duplex, while renting out the other. However, I quickly came to the realization, with the fact that I was getting married soon, that I didn't want to start my family in that home. So I rented out both sides and bought a SFH in a nice area.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

I found that I do not handle owning a small property like that, from a distance. Being in the military when I purchased the property, I was beholden to where the military told me to go. I was sent to Germany and turned this property over to a property management company. They didn't take very good care of it, I had more and more turnover, and more and more time between tenants. Eventually, I lost the property in foreclosure. This was a hard lesson to learn.