Hi everyone,

My name is Paul and I am fairly new to this site. I discovered it looking for an insurance question and then proceeded to ask about becoming a Real Estate Agent. Since then the idea to go into Real Estate has really been tapping me on the shoulder. 

To get a little personal:

For the last 1-2 years I went into a somewhat depression, gained a bunch of weight and just sat on my couch after work. Well that has ended and I am back to my normal self. I have set goals for myself in the past and I have yet to land on any of them and I am tired of it. I have a girlfriend that I cannot even afford a ring for and a 2 year old daughter that I want to be able to do more for. I haven't been on a vacation in 2 years and I live pay check to pay check and some times don't even have enough after that.

For some reason Real Estate has always interested me. I started seeing a lot more interest when I started at my current job. We do marketing for Real Estate agents, brokers, mtg companies, etc. So on a daily basis I speak to them all of the time and some advise I received on here the last time was to contact them and ask them for advise. I did that, I contacted about 10 of them and some I had phone conversations with. They were very helpful and put a lot of perspective into my eyes. I have a friend who became a Real Estate agent in my area and I talk with him regularly and he is doing great.

Now, to get into some more private information, but useful information.

My mother passes away a year and a half ago and myself and my sister inherited her home. We are in the last stages of probate now, so it should be in our name soon. We have been paying the mortgage since then and we only have about $7,500 left on it. The house is worth about $70,000 - $75,000 as is, but with new siding and windows I would see that jump to about $95,000 (the house next door sold last year for $95,000 and it has a 1 car garage compared to my 2 and my house has a breaseway and much larger driveway, plus there home had an older roof and about 15 year old windows/siding, but it had a fully furnished basement). I am uncertain whether I want to sell the home after I pay it off, rent it, or stay in it for a little while. My girlfriend hates living there anymore because of living with my sister and her two dogs. I know it would be best to live there for a little while longer after it is paid off because not having any mortgage debt would be great. So I am stuck between a rock and hard place with this.

Other than that, I have a small credit card that I am working on paying off. Then I have the dreaded student loan debt.

That is all the debt I have, but I had troubles with my student loan debt, like many others and it messed up my credit really bad. I have really been working on fixing it the last year and a half and I have increased it over 100 points. I have other things that should be falling off soon too. However, my credit still is bad, lower 600 score. 

I went to school for marketing and only have 60 credit hours, so I am 2-3 years from graduating. I am contemplating going back next fall, but not sure.

In the past year I have taught myself coding, so I try everyone in a while to get side work doing that, but without a name or portfolio it is difficult, but I have started creating a Real Estate website that I think would do VERY VERY well with Real Estate and would have the potential to compete with Zillow/Realtor.com , but I do not have the skills to create everything needed, so that thought is on hold, probably for a decent amount of time.

Now that I have given my background. I really want to start doing something with my life and I believe this is it. My first step is taking care of myself. I started losing the weight I have gained and have lost 22 lbs, I still want to lose quite a bit more. I am getting a gym membership tonight to help with this cause. Once I have got to my target weight, or close to it, I will be signing up to go to a local college to obtain my Real Estate license. Then I will join a brokerage and try to succeed in that.

What I really want to do is be an investor though and with my credit and lack of income coming in, there is no way I can do it.

So I guess my questions would be is:

1. Does my plan sound like I am going in the right direction. Is there anything I should change and/or add in?

2. Is it possible to invest in Real Estate with my situation? 

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to give my background to help and hopefully get some great insight because I have no other means of getting it.

Thanks!