All Forum Posts by: Andrew N.

@Brandon Turner - Thanks Brandon, I'll do my best. Great job on the Podcasts by the way. I've learned a ton from them and I especially like your guys' Famous Four =). I've read or heard of a lot of the book recommendations but there are definitely some gems I hadn't heard about yet. Just ordered a used copy of The Complete Guide to Real Estate Finance for Investors by Steve Burges that J Scott recommended on Podcast 10 and i'm excited to dive into that.

I've set up some keyword alerts already. Still trying to figure out what the best mix of words will be best for me. Thanks for the tip!

@Ramon Jenkins - Hey thanks Jenkins. I notice you are a RE Agent with KW in Wisconsin. Have you found that your license has been helpful for you as an investor?

I'm in the process of getting my own RE License in CA right now to help with my investing as suggested by J Scott and a number of others on BP.

I'm also reading the Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller of KW right now and I am really enjoying it.

@Mike Nelson -Thanks Mike. Here is number 3 for the day. I'm on fire. =) How are you approaching your wholesaling in Virginia? Are you doing Direct Mail Campaigns or are you approaching your lead generation in another way?

@Account Closed

I've actually heard J Scott is quite the poker player and that he used to play around where I normally play. I wouldn't mind playing him for fun, but i don't like playing high stakes with a challenging opponent if i can help it as it's usually a bad investment =).

Thanks for your warm wishes!

Hey Everyone,

I've newly moved to San Francisco, California (from San Jose) and I'm committed to beginning my Real Estate Investing journey. I have been most recently employed as a Business Systems Integration Manager where I streamlined and automated business processes. I am also an active stock investor and High Stakes poker player.

I have been interested in investing in Real Estate since college (I was in the Undergraduate Real Estate Club at UC Berkeley) but always thought the best route to that was just to save up enough money for a down payment on rental property.

After all of the learning and research I've been doing on Bigger Pockets and in Real Estate books however I now realize that while having money is important, having a deal is MORE important. The largest risk factor for novice investors is not buying correctly (ie: 70% of ARV - Repairs). Therefore I've amended how I will begin my RE Investment journey.

Instead of just trying to blindly save money and then hope to purchase something correctly when I have that money, I've decided to create my systems for deal flow right now. I am going to invest my money into creating a DM and PPC marketing campaign whereby I can begin to practice creating lead generation, estimating ARV's, estimating Rehab Costs, and negotiating with motivated sellers. My initial planned exit is to wholesale those deals I create to other investors so that I can validate and refine my ARV and Rehab estimations with another set of experienced eyes.

Once I've established a track record of accurately assessing deals and successfully closing them I hope to partner with an experienced rehabber on a number of deals rather than just wholesaling them to learn that aspect of the business.

My eventual goal is to buy and hold a number of out of state (California) apartment complexes because I believe the numbers for out of state commercial properties can more easily support the 2% and 50% rules respectively.

I am also interested in shifting my SDIRA and solo 401k's into Discounted Note investing as financing actual properties out of these retirement accounts seems to be unattractive due to the terms usually required. (as mentioned in BP Podcast 17 with Jeff Brown)

I'm really excited to join the Bigger Pockets community of Real Estate Investors. I have been a lurker for a while now on the site and decided that after all of the great knowledge I've already picked up it would be a travesty to not give back a little and get a Pro account (before my first post no less =). I've already picked up the great BP books on Flipping and Rehab estimation that J Scott wrote and I'm trying to burn through them as quickly as I can.

One of my RE Investing Education goals is to write at least 1 BP post a day for the next year. Please hold me accountable to this goal!

-Andrew Nguyen