All Forum Posts by: Jamie Martin

Thank you all for the warm welcome. Sorry for the delayed response, I am still figuring out how to navigate the site. It took me a while to even figure out how to find my own post again!

Lilia I would love to get together with the group. Please let me know when and where. Off to my day job but will be spending time on the site this weekend.

Take care!

Thanks for the welcome everyone. There is so much to read here that I am on overload!

Jonna- I still have a grandmother and an aunt in Nampa, so I try to get back once a year around my grandma's birthday. She'll be 95 this year so I am sure there will be a huge family gathering in September.

Hi,

My name is Jamie and I currently live in Honolulu, HI. I have been investing in single family homes for almost 5 years now. I have always been interested in real estate but wasn’t really in a position to do much about it until recently.

I fell into owning rental properties almost on accident. My daughter went to school out of state and when we looking into housing options, it made more sense to buy her a house than to stay at the dorms or rent a place.

The market near Boise Idaho was dead at the time. We put an offer in on a cute 3 bedroom 2 bath house that was around $80,000. There were much better deals but this house was brand new, in a super safe area and would require little to no maintenance for the next 4 years plus there was a huge bonus room and a nice yard so my daughter could take her dog.

So basically it cost me about $5000 down and nothing a month for her to have housing. The mortgage payment was just under $500 a month(including everything) and she got two other student roommates to pay $300 a month each and split the utilities.

It was so easy that I decided to buy 5 more over the course of the next year and half. The market got hot after that and there weren’t many $50,000 - 60,000 houses left on the market.

The rest as they say is history, I continue to hold the properties and rent them out which more than covers my expenses. I am not getting rich but hopefully someday they will be my retirement income.

Now that I live in Hawaii, I want to start investing here. I have the money for a down payment for my home and possibly a rental but I don’t know that market that well yet so I am still doing research. I made one offer but got out bid. I refuse to get into bidding wars unless the property is a steal.

About me personally. I am a single empty nester who transferred to Hawaii for a job about 3 years ago. I use to live on Kauai many years ago, so island living is not new to me and it fits my lifestyle. For fun I go to this great karaoke bar in my neighborhood, belong to several social meet-up groups and try to at least one thing a day I can only to in Hawaii, to make sure I appreciate living here and don’t get too lost in the normal routine of working, eating and sleeping.

One final note, I am the worst with grammar and spelling, so I apologize in advance for those that I know this fault will drive crazy.

Looking forward to getting to know you all.

Jamie Lynn