All Forum Posts by: Tyler Flagg

@DJuan Brown welcome to BP! 

As you'll soon realize there are a ton of fellow military folks on the website that love to help. I'm an Air Force guy myself and just got started investing about 8 months ago. Feel free to send me a message if you have any questions. Best of luck!

@Jasmine Bogard welcome to BP!

I live out in New Mexico but invest in OKC. I love the city and the real estate market is awesome. Best of luck and feel free to send me a message if there is anything I can do to help.

Hello BP world!

I bought my first property (thanks to the help of BP) back in April of 2014 in Oklahoma City.

First Deal in Oklahoma City!

Although I naturally made a number of mistakes throughout the process, I believe that it was ultimately a success. The property has been rented out for a while now and is cash flowing approximately $300/month.

Shortly after purchasing this first property, I made a long-term plan. This plan outlined exactly how many properties I needed to purchase each year in order to meet my final goal. For 2014, that goal was 2 properties…but I only had one…so I started looking around.

In November, I got onto Realtor.com and found two properties in my target market that were being sold as a pair by a fellow real estate investor. The amazing thing I noticed is that they are located literally right next door to the one property that I currently own. What a beautiful coincidence!

To make a long story short, I was able to take a trip to Oklahoma to check out the properties a few weeks later and put in an offer. After a few counters back and forth, we came to an agreement and just had the closing yesterday. It was the best Christmas present I received by far :-)

Here are the highlights...

Property A

• Square Feet: 1,000
• Type: 2 bed / 1 bath
• Market Price: 55k
• Purchase: 47.5k

• Gross Rent: $850
• Operating Expenses: ($256)
• Mortgage Payments: ($187)
• Vacancy: ($68)
• Cash Flow: $339

• Cap Rate (Purchase Price): 13.3%
• Cash on Cash Return (Year 1): 18.4%

Property B

• Square Feet: 1,300
• Type: 3 bed / 2 bath
• Market Price: 72k
• Purchase: 67.5k

• Gross Rent: $950
• Operating Expenses: ($262)
• Mortgage Payments: ($282)
• Vacancy: ($76)
• Cash Flow: $330

• Cap Rate (Purchase Price): 10.9%
• Cash on Cash Return (Year 1): 15.3%

Thanks to everyone for their help over the last year. Can’t wait to see what 2015 has in store.

Have a Happy New Year!

Tyler Flagg

@Derek Bell welcome to BP! It's awesome that you're thinking about this kind of stuff at age 20...it took me until I was 27 to find real estate. Well done!

Bigger Pockets is an awesome resource for answering all of your questions. There's also a ton of military on here who are more than happy to help. 

Feel free to send me a message if there is anything I can do to assist. Best of luck!

@Nate Webb welcome to BP! As you'll see there's a ton of military folks on here that are more than happy to help...so you're in good hands. I'm an Air Force guy myself and started investing back in April. I spent about 6 months reading a ton of books about real estate before I finally pulled the proverbial trigger. Feel free to drop me a line if there's anything I can do to help. Keep reading, but set some sort of timeframe for when you're going to start...otherwise it's really easy to kick to can down the road. Best of luck!

You're welcome Johnathan. I'll send you a message so that I don't hijack your post with my ramblings haha. Talk to you in a bit!

Brandon,

I had to put down 20% on all of them. Luckily for me, my properties have been between 45k-75k...so the downpayment's have been reasonable.

I haven't done a VA loan yet, but I plan on getting a multi-family using the VA loan when I move to a new base soon.

Hey @Brandon Proctor 

I'm an Air Force guy myself that just started investing about 8 months ago. I've done nothing but conventional loans so far, so sadly I can't be of much assistance to you. However, @Brandon Turner wrote a great book on precisely this topic. 

The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No and Low Money Down

The title pretty much says it all ey?

Best of luck and let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

@Account Closed that buying a 2-4 unit with a VA loan is an awesome way to get started. You'll learn about the buying process, the fixing process, and the landlording process all in one deal. I'm going to be moving to another base soon, and that is the strategy I plan on going with when I get there. Best of luck and let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

@Berkley Bossard sorry I missed your post from a while back. I'm actually stationed out in New Mexico, but invest from afar in OKC. Love the area and love the cash flow :-). As for REITs, I have absolutely no experience. However, it looks like there's been a number of forum posts on the topic. Best of luck.