Hello New member from Western Massachusetts

[Brian Theriault]

Hello. My name is Brian Theriault. I was recently introduced to Bigger Pockets through a podcast I happened on. I've since subscribed to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I started at the beginning and am about 9 episodes in. I've been interested in real estate investing for a long time, though I've never really had a whole lot of money to be able to back it.  The podcast has been great so far, in being able to give examples of how you might not necessarily need a ton of money to start out.  

I come from Holyoke, a city located in Western Massachusetts, though I currently live a town away in more rural Easthampton.  Holyoke is sort of the cliche mill town. In it's hay day it was a bustling industrial center, with all of the wealth that brings.  Though as the mills closed and the jobs went away, the city became economically stressed to say the least.  Having said that though, Holyoke has been experience a bit of a resuragance in recent year.  

It think the current atmosphere in Holyoke makes it ripe with potential for investment.  There's a huge variety of properties available, from single family homes, to much larger tenement buildings with 6 to 10 units.  

I have a background in residential construction and currently work in building maintenance, so there would be a lot that I could do for myself in the way of rehabbing properties. 

The more I have listened to the podcast and looked around a bit here, I have come up with more than a few questions, of which, I will only go into a couple here.

1:  How can you know if an area you ar interested in working is worthwhile?

2:  How do you choose which method will be the most profitable, i.e.. flipping, rehabbing to rent?

3:  What kind of advice would anyone have on trying to convince a reluctant spouse?

With those I'll close.  This is a great platform with lots of great information.  I look forward to reading more of the blog posts and will be listening whenever I can to catch up on the podcasts.  I drive at least 3 hours per day and they have been great in helping to make the windshield time fly by.