All Forum Posts by: Sean O'Brien

Thanks @Guy Yoes. I'm moderately handy and enjoy doing work around the house - a course to beef up my knowledge sounds like an awesome idea!

Thanks @Kevin Powell and @John Woodrich, another friend suggested a mother-in-law over the garage as well. It's something I would consider for sure, but I'm not sure if my wife would go for sharing the property with tenants. Appreciate the thoughts!

@John Woodrich Thank you John I really appreciate the thoughts and advice. I was initially looking in the Powederhown area of Minneapolis but have now shifted to more Richfield & Bloomington. You're right that I need to know how to recognize a good deal in order to get started.

The replies here have already given me some confidence and provided answeres to some of my unknowns. Onward to lining up the financing and finding the right deal :)

Thank you all for the great responses and insights. Seriously - these are just the kind of things I hoped to read when posting!

@Pavel U. Do you own some of the buildings at 48th & Chicago? I live in Diamond Lake right now and think I remember some Nextdoor posts about the Korean BBQ place. Thanks for the tips on starting up (small and in good location). This makes a lot of sense to me. Getting ready to make an offer right away is one of the things I will work on having lined up when I start looking seriously.

@Tim Swierczek While I don't think I will ever stop reading (and I don't think that's what you're advocating), I do feel the need to have some others with experience to talk with and learn from. My post here was my first attempt to get that started (Success!), and I will go on from this to hopefully make some more connections in our area.

@Jessica Grewe Thank you for the cautionary words. The house would definitely not be something I would want to risk losing. I will make sure to consider our family's overall debt and ability to manage payments when looking into a HELOC. My though was having the LOC would allow me to make a quicker/better offer on a property, which I could then refinace after the fact, but I need to learn more about this. I should have a good chunk of equity in our current home if we were to sell at current market values. I have a good friend who has been flipping and he has also told me he thinks the market is near peak. Also I'm glad to hear you were able to get the farm back!

@Amber Gonion So is it best/possible to operate with no level of business entity on a first purchase? And just pick up a personal umbrella liability policy? That would appeal to me, and seem simplest. I will have to look into it more - I just would want to have an understanding of what to expect (i.e. tax implications - Does it all go on a Schedule E?) and how it would all work.

Thanks again to everyone, I really appreciate you all taking the time to add your thoughts and knowledge to this thread.

@John Woodrich Nope, I missed it! :(

@Peter Ulstad Thanks for the tips! I will look into the BP meetup, I would love to make some connections and hear from others first hand about their experiences starting out.

@John Woodrich Yes... accidentally. Browser crapped out on me. It looks like the other one was removed, thanks (if that was you)!

Thanks Nick, I will be sure to check out those books. Good luck to you as well!

Hello BP, this is my first time posting. I'm 29, live in Minneapolis with my young family in a SFR we bought in 2013, and am interested in long-term buy and hold investing. I am thinking of starting at with 4-plexes, triplexes or duplexes - units that will cash flow steadily. Would love to some day get into commercial residential or retail. My dream is to build a buisness where I can eventually outsource most of the day-to-day tasks and generate a passive income stream that allows me to stop trading time for money.

My situation is this: my parents bought the house I grew up in from my grandparents, with a family discount, and are interested in keeping it in the family going forward. It's likely we will move in the next 1-3 years, and wind up with a very nice home (600-700k) with a mortgage at what I can afford on my salary (250-300k). Thank you mom and dad! I'd like to be set up and prepared by that time to use the equity in the home to start investing in other properties. I'm also working on building a nut outside of my retirement accounts (at about 8k right now) to use for this business.

To feel confident, I want to have a solid understanding of how to set up a business, proper insurance coverage, each step in the process of making an offer through closing a deal, and a strategy for managing the property. I've been reading on BP now for about 8 months and have what I would consider a moderate foundation of knowledge, but I know I need to now take some more definite steps to get off the ground. Basically I want to build a business plan and understand all the steps from today to I'm-a-landlord-with-tenants.

Are there any buy and hold investors in south Minneapolis / Richfield that would like to connect and could share some ideas, offer guidance, or refer me to good resources?  Books that you have found helpful?  Tips for the Minneapolis market right now? I know I'm a fast learner and good problem solver and once I'm going I'll be able to grow and expand.

Thanks!