All Forum Posts by: John Crouthamel

@Dana Oredson Welcome to BP from another newbie. My wife and I are getting some work finished up on our Southside home before we pickup our first deal. Best of luck to you and I hope to see you at one of the meetups soon.

-John

@Christina J. Thanks for the advice! I do have a couple credit unions in mind that we'll check with. Might not hurt to check with a large bank, but everytime we've gone to a big bank, they just aren't competitive.

@Luke Aubut I'm glad you got a kick out of it. Congrats on #4! And you have got to have a fun car/motorcycle in your life! I had to sell my old beloved Subaru since I have a work vehicle now. At least once you get things going with your REI, you can have some expendable income to get another fun car someday. I'm rebuilding a cheap motorcycle to try to get my speed fix. I personally feel so far behind the curve career-wise since I spent 8 years in school to get two bachelors degrees. Worked in the Finance industry for awhile back in 09-12, but that was a bust since Des Moines is a saturated market for business degrees. My goal at 30, was just to start a Real Job, aka an Engineering job. BUT, we need not focus on how far behind we might be to some star 20-somethings. We need to focus on building sustainable passive income to help us retire (if we so choose) before we're 50, right?! Thanks for posting Luke!

@Jedd Braunwarth I just started about 7 months ago as a Sales Engineer for NTN Bearing. I primarily take care of the John Deere accounts since I'm a former JD employee and understand how they work. I'm hoping to make the next Ingersoll meeting if it works out with the Family Schedule. Thank you for the recommendation. 

Hi @Erin Ralston,

My father-in-law is a GC and he uses Peterson Painting regularly. I have no affiliation with them, but my FIL is picky about who he works with, so I would guess they do good work. He also works on higher end houses, so that also makes me assume they do quality work.

http://www.petersonpainting.net/

Thanks @Anthony Wick for that advice! I've been watching MLS duplexes go pretty quickly around the DM area and Ankeny seems to go even faster. Do you see many 3-5 plexes in the area that aren't on the east side? Seems like pretty thin selection anywhere else in town from what I've seen in my initial searches.

@Logan Cunningham Welcome to BP from another newbie!

Thank you much everyone for the warm welcome! I appreciate all the advice and will keep absorbing as much information as possible as we finish up projects here and prepare our finances.

@Alina Trigub Luckily my wife's father is a GC, we have solid insurance and mortgage brokers, and an amazing CPA. We at least know of one Inspector in town we won't be using and also will need to find an attorney.

@Lane Kawaoka Ankeny is especially growing like crazy. Should be a solid area with all the growth it's been seeing for the last few years.

Thanks Anthony! 

I got on Meetup and have marked some local events to go to. I went to the Iowa REIA meeting back a few weeks ago and didn't see much value in paying for a membership yet. I did tentatively plan to go to the DMRE meeting on the 20th though.

Thank you for the procedural advice. I'll have to talk to my broker about getting pre-approved.

Hello BP!

I'm John, a Sales Engineer from Des Moines, Iowa and I'm preparing to find my first deal. My wife and I are finishing up some projects on our current SFH and then we're going to do final financial preparations to be able to jump when we find our deal. We are still debating on House Hacking or trying to find a small MFH that we can use our HELOC as the 20% downpayment. In the meantime, I am getting a feel for the local MFH options.

We've been interested in RE for years, but always thought you needed tens of thousands of dollars sitting in the bank to even start investing. Thanks to BP and learning about different financing options, our eyes have been opened. 

The main reason we'd like to get into RE is to help supplement our income since my wife stays home with our 3 young children. Being a single-income family can be tough financially. Eventually I would like to create enough passive income to allow us to have options we don't have now. I'm blessed to work from home with my current job and that has allowed me to spend more time with my family, but it'd be fun to not worry about our finances as much and be able to take more trips and vacations. (And also to buy motorcycles and a fun car, eventually)

I'm currently addicted to the BP podcasts and listen to them while I drive to customer visits around the state. I've even got my wife listening to some of them when we are in the car together running errands, which is a big step in getting her to have buy-in with our future goals.

For hobbies, I enjoy working on cars and motorcycles. I recently sold my personal vehicle since I have a boring work car, so the only fun cars I get to see are at Cars & Coffee. I'm currently working (slowly) on a Suzuki GS500F streetfighter bike, but house projects take priority over fixing toys. I'm also rebuilding a little 50cc ATV with the kids to attempt to teach them some mechanical skills and the final parts came in last week.

I welcome any advice any locals would have and am excited to be a part of the BP Family. Thank you!

I would not recommend Wion. He missed quite a few expensive items on our home. Message me if you'd like details.