Looking Towards the Future

[Eric Rodriguez]

Good evening everyone, this is my first post on here and I hope to get some good feedback by any experts in the field. I'm relatively young (26 years old) and I just recently purchased my first house in Staten Island, New York (one of the 5 Boroughs of NYC) for $440,000 In cash. Single family, detached home on a 46x100 piece of property in a great neighborhood, relatively close to my home where I reside with my parents (less than a mile away).. I still live at home and it's not a necessity for me to move out yet, and I plan on making a steady stream of income from this property ($1500 a month). I'm a police officer and I've been contemplating getting my real estate license to further enhance my knowledge of real estate and get a better grasp at developing markets/buy and hold strategies/ and or rehabbing/flipping. I have no debt, no loans, fully paid off car, and don't have any major expenses that can drastically impact this endeavor. I'm mostly interested in using the equity of the home to purchase other properties and further expand my portfolio of properties. I've read some "for dummies" books on real estate, but I'm looking to gain a deeper understanding and more in depth knowledge on this subject matter. If anyone has any great books to read, or advice that has helped them on their beginning journey for real estate. I would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking the time out to read all this, Eric