A real estate investor’s portfolio can include a single property or a large number of units, depending on their investment goals. As a real estate investor in Oregon, you can discover what properties make up my portfolio and how I chose to build my investment strategy.
Ever wonder what a real estate investor’s portfolio really looks like behind the scenes?
In this article, I’m opening up about my own journey in Oregon. It started with a single-family rental and grew into a mix of duplexes, fourplexes, and even development projects in our town’s historic district. Along the way, my husband and I discovered what truly matters to us as investors: creating quality housing that we can be proud of and that serves our community well.
Our portfolio may look different than others, but it reflects our values, our timing in the market, and our willingness to reinvest in properties to make them better. From purchasing during the recession when homes were more affordable, to restoring older rentals into quality housing, to exploring future opportunities like RV parks or mobile home communities. This journey is about more than just numbers. It’s about people, tenants, and building something lasting.
Key Takeaways:
- Starting small can build momentum for larger investments.
- Market timing matters — but values matter more.
- Reinvesting profits into older properties can create long-term value.
- Providing quality housing strengthens both the community and the portfolio.
An Investor’s Real Estate Portfolio in Oregon – Video Transcript
You might hear me talk about how I’m a landlord. I’m a real estate developer. I’m a real estate investor, but have you ever wondered what my portfolio actually looks like?
My name is Kaycee Miller. I work for Rentec Direct property management software, and I hold all of those titles: landlord, investor, and developer. And here’s a little look at what is in our portfolio.
I started out investing in single-family homes. That is kind of the easiest way to begin your investing journey. You have a property, you live in it, then you can use that property as collateral to get your next property, keep the first one as an investment property, and move into your next one.
That’s how my real estate portfolio got started. We started with a lot of single-family home rental properties, and we were fortunate enough to get started during the recession when houses were a little bit more affordable to invest in. Then we also have a couple of duplexes, and some multi-family properties.
Workforce Housing Development in Oregon
The real estate development that we’ve done is in the downtown area of the town that we live in, in Oregon, and we are able to build a couple of multi-family properties.
We have two four-plexes on one site that are built in the historic district of our town, and they are so beautiful looking. We have one that’s Tudor style and one that’s historic craftsman because it was really important to us to maintain the style of the housing and the development of the historic area that we are in. (There may also be a requirement because we are in the historic district of our town, but it really resulted in some beautiful properties).
Multifamily Rental Property in Oregon
We have another 8-plex in town that’s a little bit of an older property, and we don’t usually like to invest in properties that are built prior to 1970 because the building materials aren’t necessarily the best quality. But when you’re looking at numbers and a true real estate investment, if there’s high occupancy and it’s generating income, sometimes that can make us look at investing in things that we wouldn’t usually invest in.
Reinvest Rental Income for Capital Improvements
And what we’ve been able to do with that one is through generating the rental income, we’re reinvesting it back into the property to bring it up to a little bit better building materials and make sure our tenants are really happy living in quality homes.
These are our kind of values as real estate investors. You can use different practices, values, or criteria to guide you towards these decisions.
How Our Values Guide Real Estate Investment Decisions
My husband and I have decided that we want to provide quality rental housing and workforce housing to our community, and those are the properties that we’re looking to invest in.
Any properties that might be more valuable because they’re in poorer condition but still generate rental income, we want to take that deal and reinvest it to produce this quality housing that we know we can be proud of. And we know we’re providing our community with great housing.
Future Real Estate Deals
Some areas that we’re interested in expanding our portfolio and branching out from the traditional residential rental housing include RV parks or mobile home parks. We have a lot of clients who use Rentec Direct successfully with these different real estate opportunities, and we’re pretty curious about what that would be like for us, too.
So stay tuned. You never know what’s the next deal for the Miller family, but we’re excited to continue to find great deals, share them with you, and let you know the best ways to manage rental properties, work with your tenants, provide great housing, and build relationships with your landlords and tenants.
My name is Kaycee. I work for Rentec Direct Property Management software, and I’m always here to give you more tips on how to be a great landlord, advice for renters, and deals and ideas for property managers.