All Forum Posts by: Madison Martindale

I believe one of the best ways to learn is to learn from others experiences and knowledge. I would love to hear from some seasoned investors on what they would do the same or differently in their investing career. So my question is, if you could go back to your early twenties and start investing - what would you do differently or the same with the information you know now? 

Hi all! 

My husband and our business partners are transitioning out of the Marine Corps in the next 6 months to 9 months (currently based out of San Diego, CA.) We are struggling to decide between two different areas to begin our real estate ventures. We are planning on using our VA loans to buy duplexes as our initial investment. From there we would like to buy the second multi-family property rather quickly. We know that we want to start there, but we do not know how to decide which market is the best for us. We are very interested in the Salt Lake City surrounding areas (where my husband & business partners are from.) And we are also very interested in the DFW area (where I am from.) We see potential in both areas, but are looking for some outside opinions on the markets and starting out in real estate in these two places!

Any help is super appreciated. Thank you!

@Aaron K.thank you so much for the info! I'm planning to keep my job for a bit when we get there until we can make our first purchase and potentially a bit after. I was born and raised in Texas but will for sure need to take a moment to get reacquainted with the area. 

Hi all! 

I am a newbie lover of real estate. Over the last two years I have been listening to the podcast, reading books, and picturing the day I make my first investment purchase. My husband is currently serving in the Marine Corps and we plan to leave Southern California in November of 2021 to go to Texas. I work in HR & payroll full time right now and want to start making moves to prepare to 1) start investing when we're in Texas and 2) surround myself with people who are involved in real estate and fill my time with real estate. I don't want to be a passive investor but an active and full time participant. 

My husband and I are currently making the transition to living full time in an RV in order to save as much as possible for investing while living in SoCal. We are both highly motivated and ambitious people who want to learn and grow and sacrifice in order to build long term wealth. 

I have the opportunity this next year to prepare for a career change once we leave California - my question is if you were in your 20s and could go back and pivot careers, what would you do to be closer to real estate? I have considered becoming an agent to work for commissions but unsure if there is something else I am missing here! I want to start moving in a direction of working harder for my own income rather than running everyone's payrolls. 

Thank you for the insight! 

@Ben McMahon hey there! Thanks so much for the info! Yeah we have definitely held off on jumping into anything in this area, since there doesn't seem to be a good deal in sight and the prices are just outrageous. We would love to get into the process of getting into the details of it. It's a little overwhelming with the different avenues, even though everything says pick one and stick to it. I think the struggle comes from finding what it is to stick to and balancing it with full time jobs outside of real estate. I think we will have to look into some turn key options for sure! Initially, we did not consider starting out with a turn key property since we figured we'd save by managing it ourselves the first time/possibly renovating to increase value. We don't plan to live here in SD for too much longer, but we have about two more years here and not sure about how to take the next step in real estate not investing here in SoCal. 

@Mike D'Arrigo the draw towards Texas is more of our opportunity to utilize the VA loan to buy a duplex and house hack. Also, because our family is there to help if we had a property we wanted to renovate using the BRRR method. Even though the property taxes aren't the best. Thank you for the info on the midwest! I appreciate it.

Again, we definitely need to sit down and define our criteria a little more. But this is super helpful info all around to get the ball rolling in the right direction! 

@Soh Tanaka thanks for the info! Maybe we'll check some out.

@Pamela Sandberg thank you for reaching out! Yes, Phoenix seemed like a good place for us with our work schedules and driving distance. 

@David Holt Thanks for the info, I really appreciate it! Yes, starting out with the wealth of information on BP and beyond has been awesome, but it has been a little overwhelming with how many different ways there are to go about it. We are going to figure out more specifically what we are looking for as far as property type and location and reach out to some local realtors from there. Thanks again for the advice! It's nice to learn more tangible steps we can take to get to the point of being able to purchase. 

@Lee Ripma super helpful! Really appreciate you sharing with me. Trying to sort through the information available is a blessing and a curse at this stage (young & inexperienced here)! We’re focusing on educating ourselves now before we jump into anything and comments like these are really great at providing a new perspective to think about. I’ll take what you said and think more about our own criteria for a good deal and how to go about finding one. 

Thanks @Lee Ripma! That’s really helpful. When trying to find a good deal in a market that you’re aware of, but do not live in, how do you go about finding these off market deals? When listening to the podcast it seems like most everyone finds a deal that is a gem, but if you’re not connected in the market how do you find these kinds of deals? Or are these properties, like you mentioned in Kansas, found on Zillow/Redfin? 

@Nic S. gotcha - just curious what other people were doing since you didn’t invest in California. This is kind of the hard part to figure out if we should be planning on doing our own renovations/hiring a PM/out of state. Little overwhelmed with where to begin to figure it out! Read a few books and love the rookie podcast, but we’re struggling with making the first move.  And thanks @Aaron K.! That’s helpful and makes sense if we’re driving that far anyway to consider other places besides neighboring. 

@Nic S. ah thank you. Do you invest in properties long distance that don’t need any renovations or just outside of California? We were also considering Arizona or Nevada since they are within driving distance.