All Forum Posts by: Thomas Dowell

@Andrew Martel

Welcome to the forums, Drew. I'm sure you're familiar with the VA loan; but if not, it could be a good way to get started with very little to no money down. When I purchased my first (and currently only) home I actually got a couple grand cash back at closing.

Rather than start another new thread, I thought I'd hijack this one. @William Bannister do you still feel the same way? I'm only a couple years out of college, so I've got less than 10k in my Roth IRA and a mentor suggested I close out my Roth IRA and use the cash towards a down payment. With the way the market is looking, it make sense to get out now, hold the cash in silver or gold for 4-6 months and then buy when the market dips. From all the news I'm reading it looks like we're going to take a step back this year as far as the economy goes, is that what everyone else is seeing?

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome, I look forward to learning from all of you! I've already gotten a ton of responses and great information from keyword alerts and private messages, thanks to all!

Hi BP, I'm Thomas. I'm 26yo, currently living in Las Vegas working as a flight instructor and full time pilot. I've got very little applied real estate experience, but I'm very excited to get started. I've read most of the guru books over the last three or four years thanks to amazon. I'm just getting into real estate because I've finally got all my student debt under control and have a very manageable debt to income on my primary residence. I was born in NC but I've lived in a dozen or so states over the years. As my profile mentions, I'm an aspiring buy and hold investors; I'd like to cut my teeth in singles or small multis and eventually grow into the larger apartment complexes and potentially storage facilities. I have a group of similar aged and profession peers that are interested in investing with me, so I am not currently seeking money or marketing anything necessarily. I'm joining the blogs primarily in search of wisdom and maybe down the line use BP for deals. I originally heard about BP from the juststartrealestate.com podcast, so Mike Simmons, thanks, you've got a great podcast going. I also listen to the BP podcast, you guys are great.

I think one of my biggest barriers right now to investing is the lack of a smoking hot deal presenting itself; I know I'll get flamed for even saying this, but looking at the NW side of Vegas, the best possible rent/purchase price I'm finding is around 1% rather than the 2% ROT I've heard. I've considered starting with a multi, but most of the ones on the MLS and loopnet are around 10% cap rate which is doable, but again, not ideal. I would love to attend a REA meeting, but unfortunately I work most days between 12-16 hours and have other commitments when I'm not working for the man, so I'm hoping BP can be my REA.