I have been thinking about how I can keep this blog as “down to earth” as possible. I want you to know that I am just a normal person, going after a passion of mine and trying to connect other Christian investors along the way.
If you read my last article on the mistakes I have made as a new investor you may have been scared away from investing yourself. Real estate investing can be scary, but when you break it down it is very doable for most people. So to give you a better look at what we have been working on in our investing world I want to give quarterly updates. This will hopefully not only give you an idea of how real estate investing can be something you can jump into, but will also help me to stay on track towards my goals!
Related: Married to a Real Estate Investor
January:
Wes and I sat down the first weekend in January to talk about our goals for 2019. I know, it sounds pretty cliche, but it really does help to have your goals written down. We also decided we would check back in on our progress every month. So we have put reminders in our calendar to sit down and look at them again and reevaluate. We have each of our goals categorized into 3 columns – Together, Katie, Wesley. And in each of those columns are 6 different rows – Spiritual, Physical, Social, Emotional, Entertainment, and Financial.
One of my favorite goals for 2019 is to finish paying off one student loan this year! Wes was very fortunate to graduate from college without any student loans. I, on the other hand, have just 4 small ones left. We paid off one of my student loans last year that only had roughly $2,000 left on it. We loved the feeling of kissing that loan goodbye – so we decided to pay off one more this year.
Related: 6 Ways To Get A Free Education
The one we are paying off isn’t the largest loan but has the highest interest rate. We will be paying extra towards the principal each month so that the loan will be paid off by October this year instead of November of 2026. By doing this we will be saving ourselves about $1000 in interest payments. Our plan after that will be to pay off one loan each year until each one has been paid off. This means we will have all of our student loans paid off by 2022, and we will be saving a lot of money!
February
One of my other favorite goals for this year is to purchase our second rental property. In February, we started the conversation with our realtor in Indianapolis that we were on the hunt for our second rental. I also went to some real estate meetups and made some great connections in the industry.
From these meetups and cumulative research, we were recommended to check out the Dayton, Ohio market. I started to gather up some referrals in Dayton and made a lot of phone calls to different realtors, investors, and property managers. I got a good idea of different areas in the city that would be best for what we are looking for. I spent a lot of my free time researching the city.
March
We have a bit of equity in our Indianapolis rental property, so in March we decided to try to do a cash-out refinance in order to use some of that money towards a down payment for our next rental. It was a long process and it ended after the property didn’t appraise for the value we were hoping for. So we decided to hold off on the refinance for now, and maybe look into it further in the future.
Though it was a bummer, this doesn’t mess with our plan to purchase our second rental. We still have the cash reserves we need in order to make a down payment. It would have been nice to basically use the same money we did for the down payment of our first rental though!
In March, I also became an Associate Agent with Redfin! I was recommended to check out this position by a friend, and after learning more it sounded like a good side hustle for me. Basically, I work as a showing agent for Redfin and get to check out cool houses around the Denver-Metro with different buyers! It is contract work, so I tell them when I am available and in what areas I can do showings. They will schedule me during those available hours if anyone requests a viewing in my territory. So far it has been a lot of fun, and has provided me a way to keep my real estate license active and earn a bit of extra cash! Our plan is to save up that extra cash from the showings to use towards our real estate investments.
April
So far April has been a pretty great month. We found an awesome real estate agent out in Dayton who has been extremely helpful. He has a lot of knowledge about the area, and mainly works with out of state investors. He has found a few off-market deals for us to check out that we have been looking into. I have been running numbers on almost 1 deal per day. We are very hopeful that we will be able to meet our goal of purchasing our second rental property by July 1st.
Related: 5 Ways You Can Start Learning Your Market
Due to the time dedicated to finding our next rental property, I haven’t had a lot of time to write for the blog. I wanted to give everyone an update on what has been going on lately and let you know that I am gaining more knowledge along the way to share with all of you!
I love that you set goals in the beginning of the year and review them together! Goals are so important! And so is communication with your spouse about what’s important!
I agree! I will admit that we haven’t been 100% on top of checking in on our goals every month. We have it set on our calendar each month to look them over but in reality, we probably look at them every other to every 3 months. It is still very beneficial! I think it would be even more beneficial to look over them once a month and reevaluate/readjust when we are getting off course.