All Forum Posts by: Christian Rasmussen

@Julie Marquez Thank you so much Julie!  

Greetings BP!

Long time Lurker - brand new member. Real Estate Investor and Real Estate Agent.

My name is Christian Rasmussen. I'm from St. Paul, MN. I began investing in Real Estate in 2011. 3 flips and 2 holds from 2011 - 2015.  In 2015 I became a Real Estate Agent, mainly to help with investments but I've found that I really love helping people find/sell RE. 

As I worked towards becoming a better agent I put investing on the back burner until I was ready to take it to the next level.

I just took a 3 month road trip (living in the woods!) to prepare myself for the next phase of my life. I got back home two weeks ago. I'm now focused and driven unlike I ever have been and I plan to take my investing to the next stage. 

That being said... Since I've been back, I've been doing a lot!

I'm currently securing a Tri-Plex with seller financing - hoping for closing by August 1st, if not July 1st... 

I am beginning to invest using Hard Money, which is a tricky game but our numbers work. This is what brought me to become a BiggerPockets member. 

BP is a great source of information and a great source of intelligent humans! Creative discussions, logical discussions - Right Brain, Left Brain. All Real Estate related. This is what I love. This is what I do. You guys are awesome. This site rocks. I've already implemented strategies I've learned on BP. And things are just getting started!

Anyways, I'm young and have a lot of energy - if you haven't noticed =). I'm really looking forward to learning about you and your deals, hearing your tips and your advice, getting to know you as a person and being able to reciprocate all of that myself. And I'm looking fondly at the idea of doing business with some of you sometime in the future. 

Thanks for having me BP!

- C

Since becoming an agent I can't even express how much money I've saved. There are so many benefits, some which you outlined - access to MLS, not having to wait on somebody to make a move, $$$... and many more - Knowledge!!! at the very least you're going to know more about the industry and how can you go wrong there?? Also, you have the upper hand when working with Realtors who have a property you might be interested in, YOU get to negotiate, this has saved me plenty of dollars. A big one that I do want to touch on as well is that Realtors don't always look for the best of the best deals! I had an unfortunate experience with my first Realtor... she would pull three or four houses that she thought were feasible and if we didn't like them she would do it again. Now I'm able to look at every single listing I want to, and I'm finding deals quicker than ever before!

Now there is always a downside, small or large that's all relative. One being TIME! It takes much more time to fulfill someone's job that you're used to 'hiring out'. For me the time is entirely worth it, but that's all in the eye of the beholder. The second issue I would have is $$$$. Becoming a realtor isn't cheap, but if you do a deal a year you're paying for your fees. One last thing is that Realtors have different range of experiences (usually...) and this can sometime prove invaluable. 

Anyways hope this post helps!

Best of luck to you from St. Paul!

-C

Hi Kory. How exciting! Love the twin cities. Glad you've been educating yourself and networking! That's the first step. I'm based out of the Twin Cities as well - 5 year investor and agent. As well as a long time lurker on biggerpockets . Looking forward to hearing your progress and feel free to PM me with anything!