All Forum Posts by: Matt B.

Hey Jacob and Ali,

Great to hear positive experiences with finding the right team and encouragement that it can be done (mostly) remotely.  Do you have any sage wisdom, pitfalls to avoid, or general advice on how to go about finding your team?

After you determine your investment areas, do you post in BP and just talk to as many people as you can?  After hearing from enough people you get a feel for who you can trust?  

Will investors on BP that are investing in a certain area freely share their connections or do they keep that information to themselves in order to avoid competition?

Do you pick and choose the different members of your team or look for "packaged deal" teams that already have agents, GCs, and PMs?

Thanks for taking the time to help!

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I am really enjoying the open source knowledge on BP podcasts and I am experiencing it first hand in my first post!

It sounds like there are still some deals out there and I will do my due diligence to check out some of those areas.  Maybe get some good barbeque in Kansas City and check out Lebron James while I am at it. =).

For out of state investing newbies I have heard suggestions such as "at least visit the area for a few days" to "be there during the process for at least your first deal".  I think I feel more comfortable with the later statement, specifically because I am a detail oriented guy that does have slight fears when it comes to putting large amounts of money into something I am inexperienced at and working remotely with people I've only met for 1 day...

I think I am leaning towards taking 1-2 months off work, using my wife's salary to secure a few conventional loans, then doing some cash only deals as well.  Then return to work and refinance the cash only deals.  In your experience how many deals could I land in 1-2 months?

Also, do you think a bank would have an issue doing a refinance with a 2 month break between jobs in the same industry (engineering).  I would likely be transferring to a new company and could justify to the bank that I was either investing / taking vacation / moving / etc.

Thanks for your help.

- Matt

Hi Jasmine,

Thanks for the prompt reply. I have been listening to a lot of BP podcasts and trying to screen properties using their metrics. For example, the property you listed above does not qualify for the 2% rule. (You should be able to rent properties for 2% of sales price). Are you familiar with markets that can meet the 2% rule, 50% rule (w/ 25% down), and IRR > 15%? That is my starting criteria. Is that reasonable?

Thanks again.

- Matthew

Hi everyone,

My name is Matthew and I am currently living in San Jose, Ca.  I am originally from San Diego, Ca.

I have been interested in Real Estate investment for about 3 years and currently own 1 SFR rental in San Diego. Every day I feel more and more inspired to add to my portfolio and build passive income. I have 1-2 years before my wife and I start having kids so I want to real estate invest now (pending good deals of course =) ).

My real estate goals are to acquire small multi-families (and maybe SFRs) out of state, in order to reach my goal of financial freedom (100k / year passive income).  California is not an ideal market so I will be looking at different markets over the next few months and aim to start my next stage of investing in March / April 2015.

I am new to out of state investing (and went to school at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo where the motto is "learn by doing") so I want to spend a minimum of a few months in my desired market, personally building my team and portfolio.  I can then learn the process and invest remotely in the future.

After determining my ideal market, I am heavily considering 2 options.

1) Leave my current engineering position, move to investment area for 1-3 months and use my HELOC / cash to buy a few properties (2-4 properties). Return to work and refinance afterwards.

2) Find new job in the investment area, work full time and be able to use bank financing to buy more properties (6-10 properties).  Remain in the area for minimum of 1 year.

The other option is investing remotely as a newbie but I am not too comfortable with that considering I will need to put a lot of trust / faith in people I have little prior interaction with.

If anyone has done anything similar or has any advice on my options / potential markets for me to look into for April 2015, please contact me or leave a post.

Thanks!