How many times have you bought a property that doesn't fit perfectly in your buying criteria.

Hi all, I am Dennis live in South Jersey.. I have been associated with real estate since mid 90”s. But still consider myself as a startup investor; I dont personally own anything but my family owns 2 properties that me and my wife property manage. I am looking to buy my own investment property hopefully soon… I have identified an area but need to dial in and that is why i joined..

Hey guys, just curious how many investors pull the trigger on title insurance? And if anyone here has had an incident where they actually needed/used it?

My big win this month is my CapEx reserves are now full again on my first duplex so I can now save an additional $500/month towards property #3! I feel like having full reserves is a big contributer on the “hockey stick” growth. Have you all had a “hockey stick” growth moment?

Hey hey! The Navy sent me to this part of the country back in 2005, and I just never left. I met my wife here, we started our family, and Hampton Roads became home. Fast-forward to June 2023, when we finally pulled the trigger on our first rental property. My wife and I had always been interested in real estate, but between the Navy sending me in different directions and her trying to survive raising our young kids, investing kept getting pushed down the road. Eventually, we finally said, “Let’s do it.” We’ve always been pretty conservative with money. Starting around 2011, we built up a sizable mutual fund that we originally intended to use toward a future home purchase. Then we learned how powerful the VA loan could be. We used the VA loan with zero down twice—first in 2012 and again in 2017 when we moved into our step-up home. We eventually sold the 2012 house after learning a painful lesson about flood zones firsthand. The property flooded while we lived there, and much of what we owned was a total loss. Then, in 2023, we really started investing. Since that first rental purchase, we’ve acquired a second townhouse, a single-family foreclosure, and, this year, our first duplex in Virginia Beach—an insanely competitive market for small multifamily properties. Over the past year, I also obtained my real estate agent license as a side gig, and that side gig has started taking off. For my fellow investors, here’s something I’ve learned: if you know your buy box, study your market year after year, understand ARV, rents, cash flow, financing, and what actually makes a deal work—and then get your real estate license—you have a serious advantage. A lot of agents are primarily trained to sell homes stricly as sales people. As investors, we tend to look at properties differently. We care about where the market is headed, what something could be worth after improvements, what it will rent for, how the numbers work, and whether there's actually money to be made. I've been able to take that investor mindset into my real estate business, and it has helped me attract some great clients while becoming a better investor at the same time.