All Forum Posts by: Orion Walker

Hi @Eric Zunkley, welcome aboard. I'm up toward the other end of the state north of SF. Bought my first property (4plex) in 2012 and so far I'm a fan of the buy/fix-up/hold approach. Definitely set up keywords if you haven't yet, and listen to the podcast. 

Cheers,

-Orion

Hi Aaron, I'm from Northern California too, though not as far north as you. I'm over in Ukiah. Cool that you decided to jump in on the forums. Thanks for your breakdown on your Alabama deal. I'm new, with one 4plex under my belt. Looking to figure out my next steps and trying to determine if I'll be wasting my time looking for things in this area versus out of state. So thanks again for sharing. 

-Orion

Hey @Dave Visaya I see that you are from Cebu. I spent a few months in The Philippines back when I was in college on a great study abroad program. Had a great home stay for a few weeks outside of IloIlo. Even made it down to Mindanao. What a beautiful country, and everyone was super friendly. Really hope to get back there with the family one of these days. 

Cheers,

-Orion

Thanks for the welcome @Brandon Turner! I knew when I bought my 4plex back in 2012 that I was just going on gut instinct and that at some point I would need/want to get educated on how to actually pursue RE with some knowledge and strategy. Stumbled on BP while researching whether I should get a license as a means to advancing my investment interests. What a great resource. Loving the Podcast. 

Thanks for the input @Matt R. and @Don Schultz. Yeah, I can certainly see the argument that it could have positive impacts, but it seems like a complicated issue in that most people in that industry around here are afraid that legalization will bring a sever drop in price which will then mean a lot less money in the local economy, folks not able to pay their bills, housing prices dropping... I've heard that the difference between here and Colorado is that they didn't really have an established industry, so there's more of a boom, where here folks see it as dilution. Anyhow, thanks for the two cents. Just one of the interesting quirks of this market to consider I guess.

Hi Folks,

I live in Ukiah, California, (Mendocino County) which is 2 hours north of San Francisco, one hour north of Santa Rosa. This area is infamous for being part of the "Emerald Triangle" meaning Marijuana is a substantial part of the economy. Various study's have been done showing that it is probably the largest industry in this region. I bring this up because many here suspect that a legalization bill will pass in 2016 which will cause the economy in this region to take a huge dive (scarcity keeps prices high). Some have cautioned against buying in this area because they expect this huge economic downturn. 

Personally, I tend to think that we have enough other fundamentals going for us in this region (wine, tourism, proximity to bay area...) that it won't have a huge effect, but I'm curious what others think. So, anyone have thoughts/input on this?

Hey @Tyson Cross, I was going to basically post the same question, so thanks for beating me to it, and thanks to everyone who has chimed in with helpful comments. I too am looking at the local CA market and thinking I might do well to look elsewhere. But I'm also wary of going out of state. Most of the owners I know are the types who only invest within an hour of where they live. 

One related question I've been pondering is: does it make more sense to go downmarket to stay local, or deal with the challenges/risks going out of state, but have the upside of being able to buy nicer places in better areas?

Hey @Kathleen L., good to meet you here on BP. I was just up past Laytonville a couple weeks back for the Kate Wolf Music festival. Camped with the family, had a great time. 

Let me know if you're in this neck of the woods again, I'd love to meet and chat. 

And if you're organizing any meetups or know of other events or folks in the north bay that I should connect with I'm all ears. 

Thanks!

-Orion

Hey Chris, we bought our first property about a year and half ago and it was a triplex. We didn't know much at the time so I think we got pretty lucky. What really helped was that we were working with a very experienced mortgage broker. After looking at various options he recommended that we go with an FHA loan. This ended up working out and even though the property was listed at 275k they accepted our offer at 250k and we only had to put down about 3% so we found ourselves in an awesome triplex for under 10k. The only issues that we ran into were that FHA has its own inspection process and we had to do a couple of repairs before the loan would go through and because it was a triplex we weren't allowed to accept gift money. But we managed to get through those minor hiccups.

@Thomas Bernota  Yeah, Fort Bragg is a cool little town. I like that having our place over there gets me out to the coast more often. We love taking our bikes over and riding along the hull road and playing on the beach. 

Thanks for taking the time to say hello.