Learning about real estate investing

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, I'm gonna start this podcast by saying this. One, I am by no means a real estate expert. I am just starting to learn about real estate. Two, I have nothing to sell you here. I'm not trying to sell you a course on real estate.

I am not trying to get you into anything about real estate at all. Three, I have no connection to any other resources that I am going to be talking about today. I'm just gonna be showing you some of the things that I've been doing to learn about real estate and real estate investing. The reason I'm saying this is because right now, I'm in the process of closing on my first investment property, and I'm doing it via a VA loan. And what I noticed about this was that it was a far easier process than it made it out to be.

You know, if you asked me a year ago, I would have told you that I was never gonna be able to open up own my own house. I was never going to be able to own property just because my financial situation was so horrible. But what happened in the meantime was I got a W-2 job. I'm I've been working as a director of marketing for an awesome company out here in Florida called Fortress Anchors. Those of you who do boating, you might be familiar with it.

They they're a made in America company, and I'm really, really enjoying this work because it also affords me the opportunity to continue what I'm doing here at Warrior Soul. And I really love the fact that I'm supporting American manufacturing. That's beside the point. But I'm not making a ton of money right now. I'm not making a ton of money out of the fact.

I'm probably making right around what most of you would be making. It's a it's an average salary. But I was able to in Florida, not in California anymore. I'm in Florida. I was able to get a loan, a VA loan for a house where I'm putting practically no money down and purchasing a how house out in Hollywood, Florida.

And the reason I'm telling you this because, again, I didn't think this would ever be possible for me. I'm sure there's some of you out there who are thinking to yourselves, it would never be possible for me. Right? It would never be possible for me. And it was that shortsightedness that kept me from actually going out there and doing the research necessary to be able to do what I'm doing now, which is closing on my first investment property.

Now you probably ask me, well, how are you getting an investment property through the VA? You've gotta live there. And, essentially, what I'm doing is I'm buying a single family home with a mother-in-law suite attached. Right? And you've gotta be the primary resident of record, but nothing says that you can't live in the mother-in-law suite and then rent out the house.

Right? And so that's what I'm doing. And, essentially, I'm gonna be living for a while without paying a mortgage, without paying rent, without doing any of this stuff. And particularly for the VA, there are certain things about the VA loan that make it a really good real estate investment tool. If you pick up a house and you you have to live there, you have to be the first resident of record to my knowledge, and you purchase that house, you could either rent it out by the room, or if you get a multifamily, you can rent out the other side.

Or if you if it has a mother-in-law suite, you can rent out the mother-in-law suite, or you can live in the mother-in-law suite, you can rent out the main the main house. And the cool thing about the VA loan is there's a lot of people out there who think you can only use it once, but what you can do is you can refi out of that loan, and you could use your VA loan again. Right? So for those of you who are out there who might be in a VA loan right now, one of the things you might want to consider because interest rates are so freaking low right now, like I'm I'm getting a really good interest rate on my loan, you might want to think about refi-ing out and then trying to use your VA loan again. But like I said at the beginning of this, and as you could probably tell by the rudimentary way I'm using these terms, I am definitely not an expert on any of this.

What I've been doing is I've been taking a few different courses and going out there and actually listening to the experts. So the first one I want to point you to is a guest I've had on this show before. His name is Markian Sich. He's a Marine Corps officer who teach teaches veterans and active duty military members how to do real estate investing. He's got a product called active duty Active Duty Passive Income, and they talk about how to use this tool, the VA home loan.

Alright? And I definitely suggest you go check out those episodes, and I definitely suggest you go check out his course. He's got a a free course on the VA home loan itself, and he's got some other paid courses about real estate investing and how to do real estate investing. And then a couple of other resources here I wanna point you to. Since you're listening to this podcast, you probably like podcasts.

Number one, definitely check out the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast. And number two, check out the Real Estate Rookie podcast. It's also part of the BiggerPockets Network. Just really fabulous resources that you can listen to, that you can, you know, on your way to work while you're working out, you can listen to these and you can learn so much. And once again, it's it starts by seeing it as being possible for you.

When you start to realize that there are people out there just like you doing this, things become a lot more possible. And, you know, one of the things for us in this community, it's about building each other up. It's about putting ourselves into position to exact change. And, you know, part of that is making sure that you're set financially and making sure that you're set for growth. Right?

So, again, while I can't give you any real tools to do this because I am not an expert, definitely wanna point you toward those resources that can give you those. Alright? Also, another resource I wanna mention is Brandon Turner, the host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast. He's got some great books out there that you should check out on real estate investing, on BRRRR investing. BRRRR is a term that he invented.

You know, you'll learn about house hacking where you live in the house while you rent it out. There's so many things out there, and I just wanna say to you guys, you know, if you're sitting there wondering whether or not it's a possibility for you, you know, it is. Get out there, learn about it, see how you can make it possible for yourself. And that's it, guys. I'm not gonna hold you up any longer because I want you to go out there and listen to those resources and take some action.

So this is Chris Albert, the Warrior Soul podcast. Get out there. Live your best life while you can, and I am out.