New investor here from Jacksonville, FL. In early 2018 I got the real estate bug and spent most of the year reading and listening to podcasts. 

My wife and I decided that long term buy and hold investments were right for us and BRRRR was the strategy we wanted to to use.

After analyzing many properties over the past year, we finally got a property under contract and closed on it on December 31st! We used a HELOC from our primary residence to fund the $45k purchase price.

The house is a 3/1 with 884 sq ft. It had a new roof and AC about 5 years ago, but aside from that it needed a full kitchen, bathroom, plumbing, exterior repair, paint, floor refinishing, and windows. 

We budgeted $20k (also paid for with our HELOC) in renovations, met with a few different contractors, and picked the one we felt best with based on his scope of work, price, and references. They got started the first week of January and plan to be done by the second week of February.

As I write this, things are progressing well on the renovation and we still seem to be on track and on budget. I think we have two weeks left in the project and then we’ll be able to market it and start vetting potential tenants. 

In the middle of the year (after 6 month seasoning period) we plan to cash out refinance the deal. Our target ARV is $90-95k so, ideally should leave us with zero of our money left in the deal (except maybe some of the financing costs). Our target rent is $925/month.

I’ll post a few more updates once the renovations are done, when we place a tenant, and then again once we refinance. It’s an exciting journey that we are happy to have officially started. Once we get the money back, we plan on putting it back to use in another property as soon as we can. 

A huge thank you to the BP community. We have learned so much over the last year, and owe much of that to Bigger Pockets. 

Kyle