Mark J.

Experience: Successfully (and profitably) completed a house-hack basement conversion and a buy, fix, flip of a 6/4 duplex. I sold the duplex via For Sale By Owner (FSBO) for the first time which also saved me and the buyer many thousands of $$. In January 2016, I purchased my first foreclosure through the county auction site and successfully used the BRRR strategy on it. I purchased a second auction property in 2016, did a light reno on it, and sold it- all within 30 days in April 2016. As of Oct. 2016, I now have two buy-and-hold SF properties fully rented with great tenants and excellent monthly cash-flow. As of June 2017, I now have three buy-and-hold SF properties. My first property took me six months to renovate, the second three months, and my last eight weeks. Seems I'm learning a thing or two... ;) Real Estate Goals: Well, my highest aspiration for joining this site is that one or more of you kind and generous people will prevent me from doing something absolutely idiotic and extremely costly. Overall, I would definitely consider myself the George Costanza of investing-- whatever I do, you should do the opposite. At least that was my experience in the stock market. However, about four years ago, I converted my 1,000 sqf basement into a beautiful, modern 2/1 rental. I lived in a large city, within miles of the city center, in a high-demand area. The monthly rental income covered my mortgage, allowing me to squirrel away some $$. And that's how I became a real estate convert (and a stock market refugee who now only invests in professionally managed, low-fee index funds). I've recently moved to Tampa, FL and have been researching and watching the real estate market closely. If you looked at my web browser history, it pretty much looks like this: 1) Hillsborough County Foreclosure Sales (www.hillsborough.realforeclose.com) 2) Redfin / Realtor.com / Zillow 3) ESPN. ;) Thanks for making it this far into my introduction. I'd have clicked the Back button 100 words ago.