Getting Started

I was thinking today on my way home from my 9 to 5 job that I should write a Blog on BiggerPockets so I can look back someday and see how far I've come. I'm not the best writer but we will see how it goes. I have a tendency to wander with my thoughts but hopefully because I'm excited by real estate investing hopefully I can stay on topic.

For years I've wanted to get into real estate. I attended a few local seminars where these big out of town investors advertise their business on the radio for a few weeks before they come to town and have you come to a hotel ballroom. During the presentation they put everyone through their well rehearsed program to get the crowd all fired up and then they drop the hard sell. Sign up today and you'll be up and running in 30 days and on your way to financial freedom. If you walk out the door today's offer will increase 3 fold. Many rush to the back of the room to sign up. I assume many fail or quit within several weeks. I never signed up because my spidy sense was on high alert and something didn't feel right.

Recently my Mom passed and I  inherited the house. There are two catches. One my brother who has lived Mom all of his life essentially comes with the house since he lives there and the house needs 30k in repairs to et up to code. Although the house is a 4 bedroom single family 2 story house it has 2 front doors. While removing paneling from one of the bedroom walls all of the plumbing for a kitchen was found. Duplex. Now the plan is to fix it up and have my brother live upstairs and rent the downstairs to pay for the house, essentially breaking even.

My other half who has a finance degree, is from the school of there must be money in the bank and you can't take that money to invest in real estate because we won't have money in the bank earning .05 of interest a month.

My oldest daughter who is in her young 20's lives and works at Disney World. And my wife and I purchased a turnkey house in Florida that my daughter lives in for free while we rent the 4 other bedrooms for positive cash flow. While looking for a house to buy the real estate agent showed me a house that was a short term rental that was already rented for almost half of the year already. While I was looking at the house the property managers were there and I got a chance to speak to them. I was very impressed at how clean the house was kept and looked liked a model home. I started researching short term rentals and now I'm thinking of getting into this part of real estate near WDW. During my next visit to Florida I want to stay in one of these short term rentals to see how the process works and hopefully get to meet with the property managers to learn about their business. Essentially I'll be interviewing the property managers and if I do buy short term rentals do they have capacity for more rentals and do they fit my needs.

Wish me luck.

Chuck