Hello BP members just wanted to reach out and say thank you to the mass of people that have shared some knowledge or helped me in the last few months just yesterday closed on my first official investment property (second rental though). If not for this wonderful group and website I’m not sure if I would have continued to push forward with this process.

When I found every real estate question I would pop into google has a link to some blog or forum on here i quickly realized this community might be what I need. In the beginning I think my joy and excitement of finding a network of like minded individuals may have caused my spouse to think it was some cult or something haha. She’s slowly warming up to real estate though and enjoys checking out BP these days.

Anyways, I got started on this journey back in January when all I thought I had to do was call a lender and go find something I could buy with the 8k I had in the bank (looking back it is funny now). Needless to say from books, blogs, audiobooks, podcasts and networking I was able to learn how to cut my liabilities/expenses and increase my savings rate to around 60%.

Repeatable consistent actions is what got me here and will bring me to my future goals.

•make time to read every day

•save more than you think you can (pay yourself first)

•find individuals to bounce deals and ideas off of that have no financial gains to you closing a deal***

•have reserves before going to closing table (buy what you can afford and still sleep well with affording)

•go to REIAS, meet people, break out of your shell, do what’s uncomfortable but also recognize and understand how not to waste someone’s time who’s helping you.

•hyper focus on one strategy, a Brandon turner line “quit building all these little bridges to one island focus on one bridge”

Deal I got was off market and was probably close to 60-80th deal I analyzed and well into the hundreds I looked at over the last few months.

Asking price 165,990

PP 161,000 plus 3k closing credits

Appraisal 186,000

PITI 1095.00

CF 240.00

2,500.00 in needed repairs

12,000 in finishing the rest of the basement for a home office and second bathroom, market will support 250-300 rental increase for this.

20% down conventional

3.5%/30 years

tenants are re signed already at 1,700.00 for 6 months in which they can decide if they want to stay with the upgrades and take the rental increase.

**with Covid I would recommend obtaining dated proof of rental payments from previous owner with tenant inheritance.

Purchased rental document package for Illinois off BP

A big shout out to the MVP of this deal that allowed me to bounce properties off of him for months, then when the time came gave me some contacts to help make sure I could close this deal. @Mark Ainley thank you for everything.

Thank you BP!