Why is This Site Here?

I first started investing in the Cleveland area as a local college student in the late 1990s. I wasn’t deterred by my lack of money, connections, or knowledge… it was the era when rampant no-money-down lending was just starting to hit the scene big-time, and with a few strokes of the pen I was able to acquire properties and become an “investor”. With almost no cash out of pocket, I had bought 3 duplexes and a triplex before I was old enough to buy a beer. In theory this probably sounds amazing… but the reality is that I totally did not know what I was doing, and I made a number of major mistakes, from over-paying to over-leveraging to over-improving. After a few years of stress and turmoil, I was broke and battle-scarred, and finally called it quits.

The nice thing about going broke when you’re barely old enough to rent a car, however, is that you’re young enough to learn from your experiences and achieve better results the next time around.

Fast forward a few degrees and a decade or so later… Following the financial crisis, I dove into the Cleveland real estate market again, despite living thousands of miles away in sunny California. By capitalizing on my learnings from my previous Cleveland investing experience along with my greater knowledge of business and real estate, I was able to take advantage of the huge opportunities in the Cleveland market. I now know exactly what to look for regarding every aspect of a real estate deal — from location factors to physical property characteristics to the business side of things. Currently, I own multiple properties in the Cleveland area: 6 single family houses, and 1 duplex, all currently tenant occupied, and generally delivering a pretty solid return.

Over the years, I have had countless individuals, friends and strangers alike, approach me to pick my brain on the topic of Cleveland real estate investing. Finding myself saying the same things over and over, and explaining the same concepts over and over, I decided to launch this site as a comprehensive informational resource for anyone interested in investing in the Cleveland metro. I am not trying to sell you a property, rent you a property, buy your property, or manage your property. There is no catch… I am just putting the intimate knowledge I have developed out in the public domain… so hopefully going forward when people approach me to ask about Cleveland investing, I can refer them first to this site to get up to speed on the basics and save myself from reciting the same old schpiel! 😉

Want to get in touch? Feel free to drop me a line or find out how to schedule a live 1:1 chat via the Contact page!

Happy investing!

-Rob Matelski, ClevelandInvestorPrimer.com