Dipping Our Toes in the Real Estate Market

Picture of the Day for 11/28/2012. Readers of my blog are aware that I'm forming a company with my sister Robynne and brother-in-law Will to do some real estate investing. The name of the company will be the Merrill Collins Investment Group. (No cutesy or clever names for us. Our company name gets straight to the point.)

Based on the training we've received, we know how important it is for our long-term success to do our first deal. After that, it won't seem so scary to us. We thought we might be dipping our toes in the real estate investment business this week by purchasing a condo in St. George, Utah that would be used as a vacation rental. As you can see from the pictures, the view of the mountains from the condo is spectacular. The inside of the condo is pretty spectacular too. We spent the whole day on the phone with each other, our real estate agent, and our coach and ultimately came to the conclusion that there aren't enough guarantees regarding the rental income for us to justify the purchase as we not only need to be able to cover the mortgage, taxes, HOA fees, property management fees, and utilities, but any rental property we buy has to generate some significant passive income.