All Forum Posts by: Gary Newbold

@John Thedford, what kind of decent rates from friends and family (private)?  This may be an option for me once I nail this process down and jump in on a property, but want to have a enticing number but worthwhile for me if they ask.  Obviously we'd all love the 0% "I trust you" funding, but if I had to call out a number I don't know where I'd start at this point.

I'm assuming you haven't listened to the Bigger Pockets podcasts?  Its a great starting point and I am still going through them.  They recommend books at the end of every single episode.  Enjoy.

I have been using Mint (www.mint.com) to track everything for a while now.  No more reviewing pages of credit card purchases at the end of each month, I see when purchases are made almost instantly, and it has all of my investments / loans as well.  It's been easy and I know I can use the tools for deeper analysis but I haven't set those up yet.

Great work @Ken P.

Thanks @Dylan Tanaka and @Andrew Syrios.  

Dylan, I'll keep an eye out for REIA of Macomb events coming up.

Hello all. My name is Gary and I currently reside just outside of Detroit. A little background: I grew up 45 minutes outside of Detroit and have owned (personal) homes north of Grand Rapids and now on the far east side of the state, selling (in 2010) the first home after 2.5 years of living there. I have a degree in engineering and went back to school for an MBA which I finished in 2014. In 2015 I left a large corporation to be employee #15 at a small LLC. This is where I have first-hand recognized the potential of owning something and driving growth. Despite some of the podcasts I've heard about school, yes, the MBA was worth it for me, but I want to do more.

How I came across BP was through a series of podcasts.  I love listening to entrepreneurship-focused podcasts and eventually heard someone mention bigger pockets on one of them.  I've been listening to them on my drives ever since.

I enjoy staying active, living near the lake and doing projects around my house.  I enjoy my job and see potential for growth, but I am ready to invest in something other than the 401k and stocks route now.  I am looking to attend nearby meetings to keep learning about the process as I scour the discussions on the BP website.  I would like to meet nearby investors, contractors, property managers, wholesalers, anyone really to call upon to join me in future deals.

Side note:      The home projects I now enjoy were somewhat forced upon me.  I had a contractor finishing my basement and he bailed out last year when it was about 30% complete.  I tried one other random contractor who messed up a simple job so I went out and purchased all of the tools I needed and taught myself how to do all of the rest of the work.

I look forward to reading what I can on the site and really want to start analyzing local (Detroit suburbs) deals so I know what I'm looking at.  I assume I'll meet some local folks at a meeting at some point but I'll buy a beer for those of you with some experience who would want to meet up as well.

Thanks.