My name is Mark Whitted. My wife Tracy and I are budding real estate investors. From my profile on Bigger Pockets:
We owned our primary residence for 10 years ending 21 years ago. We have rented a lot of homes and apartments over the years. So… none. Yet.
UPDATE:
In July of 2018, our landlord of almost 10 years let us know that when our lease was up in February she would be selling the house. We made an initial attempt to buy the house ourselves (to do a “live in flip”) but our needs and goals were just too different. So we started looking for a 2, 3, or 4 unit property to “house hack”. (What is House Hacking?) We found a duplex within a week, we closed in 30 days, and we were all moved about a month later.
Two years later we moved to the “less pretty” side to maximize our rent. In 5 ½ years, we have had one month of vacancy and the rent has been raised with every lease renewal. Our second tenant is on their third lease, this one for two years with a built in mid term rent increase.
Real Estate Goals
Provide 30-35 families with clean, comfortable, affordable housing. Pets welcome.
For almost 3 years, I had a self directed IRA with Equity Trust (no affiliate relationship) that I used to invest in real estate backed notes. We took a distribution from the IRA to by our duplex. Since learning about the Infinite Banking Concept (IBC), I am no longer a fan of IRAs (self directed or otherwise) or any other “tax qualified” investment plan. In Q2 2019, I started taking distributions from my IRA to fund our own bank using IBC. I look forward to returning to private lending from our IBC bank. But for the time being we are focused on paying off $100l+ in mostly credit card debt.
I have added a resource list here where I will share my research into various aspects of real estate investing. i will also endeavour to blog periodically on real estate related subjects. I have established an events calendar where I will share real estate investment events.