re: Real Estate Investing......... New update pg 7

I’ve always been intrigued by real estate investing, specifically buying houses and letting the rent pay the note until paid off then hold and collect profit after that. I’ve never put much deep thought into it until recently when my wife and I discussed it and came to the conclusion that we were both interested in this type of investment.

I read a few articles and the free starter guide on biggerpockets.com and I think that my niche and strategy would be single family/small multi-family buy and hold. I’d like to start off slow then build to 10-15 properties and have my wife eventually act as property manager. All income for the first several years would be reinvested. Overall goal would be to have them paid off in 10-15 years then collect rent thereafter as part of my early retirement plan and maybe pay for my kids’ education. I can do some intermediate to advanced (non-specialized) handy work and am not scared to get dirty.

Currently, I don’t have much in the way of liquid assets for a down payment but I do have a decent HELOC that I can pull from for cash.

I have a few questions (generally speaking and based off of what I’ve read recently…):
· How does one go about finding properties that will produce a positive cash flow? (ie: where to look other than real estate and mls websites)
· How do you move from owning one to multiple properties? Say I use the HELOC for down payment on #1, what threshold do I need to surpass on property #1 to move on to property #2, and so on?
· What’s a reasonable timeline to move from one to more properties? (to be used in setting up my overall goals)
· What are some reference books that I should be reading to get started?
(Might be some repeat questions from above, was typing this off the top of my head)

Note: I also have an unlimited resource for legal advice on this subject.

I know these are very general questions and a lot depends on the actual market and properties available, but any advice or comments are greatly appreciated.