Purchased First Property! (Out of State)
At the beginning of this year, I decided to just take the first step by getting pre-approved with a lender. I shopped around with 3 different lenders and after getting approved, I reached out to my aunt who is an agent in NY. She connected me with agents in North Florida who set me up with daily MLS emails after a discussion on my goals/pricing.
After monitoring these emails daily, we finally found a home that would work. The sellers stayed firm at $130k when I wouldn't move higher than $125k. There was no deal, but 3 weeks later they came back and agreed. They even threw in a 1 year seller-paid warranty and a $1,500 concession to reduce my closing costs!
We closed before the end of March, even while we were all on COVID lockdown. I could not travel to the house at all and after sitting vacant for 1 month, I had property managers get it rented for slightly above market value for a May 1 move-in.
After budgeting for all expenses, including capex, property management and vacancies, I will be profiting just over $200/mo in cash flow!
BiggerPockets has been an enormous help through this process and I only plan to be more active on here as I work to grow my portfolio and find partners.