All Forum Posts by: Melissa Geissinger

@Jad Boudiab if you have recommendations, I am also looking for a PM in the Akron, OH area. 

I lost my home in Coffey Park and rebuilt, so I have a unique perspective here. For me, I had only owned my home for a couple of years so I did not have an over-abundance of equity built in it. When you get insurance payouts, they only give you so much money to rebuild or replace. It can go over that amount by a certain percentage in different categories, but they only pay out on those overages if you actually rebuild, not if you replace by buying a new property. So if you owned less of your house at the time of the fires, financially it made more sense to rebuild. When it's your own home, emotions also play more into it. That being said, would I ever invest in property in high fire risk areas? Big fat no. It's all a gamble, barrier of entry aside. 

*meanwhile, researches investing in areas with tornadoes and hurricanes*

Thanks, Jesse! Good luck to you too!!

Hey BP community! I'm new here and so far I'm loving what I'm seeing from this group. 

I wanted to introduce myself as well as ask what you might recommend for a career pivot. 

My name is Melissa and I am an aspiring real estate investor/rehabber located in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, CA. I bought my first house 8 years ago, used the equity to move up a couple of years later, and unfortunately lost my home in the Tubbs fire in 2017. My husband and I rebuilt but later separated mere weeks before the home was completed. Multiple personal tragedies in quick succession left me unable to work for a couple of years. When I was able to go back to work, I decided to make a career 180 from website development into real estate and decided to become a mortgage advisor/loan officer. The downside to this is I didn't predict the separation nor the pandemic, so I'm left in a position where I need to have a more reliable source of income (ie not commission only) and I'm quickly running out of financial runway. 

I have been doing a lot of soul searching and figuring out what I want to do for the rest of my life and the answer has been a resounding REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT. I would prefer to ditch the client-facing and paperwork-heavy tasks of a loan officer and instead do more hands-on, project/property management-related work. I'm hungry to learn as much as I can about investing and am open to anyone's ideas or suggestions of where I might look for a great opportunity to grow my career in the investment direction while hopefully having an income that makes numbers work in the loan department. 

Creative solutions appreciated! Thanks! 

@Becky Kaapuni I live in Santa Rosa and am trying to move in the direction of investing, but before I do I was hoping to get some experience managing/maintaining properties. Maybe I could help you out and get your expenses closer to the 10% you're looking for? 

Hi Eseta! I'm new here and also in Sonoma County. Would love to connect!