Starting Out - Newbie from New York

[Chris Marangoudakis]

I have always dreamed of investing in real estate. For the past 2 years I have been reading whatever I could get my hands on. I've scoured the internet and real estate forums for advice and I have downloaded audiobooks for my daily commutes when traveling to work. I feel like I am ready to turn this into action.

I was recently married in October and me and my wife both want a future in real estate investing. We have said for years that we would use our current professions as a stepping stone to ultimately achieving that goal. If the hard work we are putting in now pays off, we want to invest our money into real estate in order to set us up in the future.

Me and my wife have been putting some money aside for about 2 years now. We are currently renting an apartment and we are in no rush to buy a home right now. I would rather take the money we have been saving and invest it somewhere before we dropped it all on a house. My thinking is that we invest and make our money work for us before we are tied to a house with mortgage payments etc.

My question to everyone is what were some of your first real estate investments? I would love to hear how other people got started. I personally would like to get into the rehabbing of distressed homes. As a contractor, I have a lot of experience that I feel would benefit me. Hopefully my next step after rehabbing will be multi-family properties to buy and hold. We have a decent amount of money saved up but New York real estate isn't exactly the cheapest. If you had a bankroll of $75-100K to work with where would you look to invest?

I look forward to hearing from you...

CKM