New Member & Novice Investor from San Diego, CA

[Anton Ivanov]

Hi Guys & Gals,

I'm Anton and I'm excited to have recently joined the BiggerPockets community! I've sort of been all over the world - grew up in Moscow, Russia, moved to San Diego when I was 15, served in the US Navy in Japan for 6 years and now am back to San Diego.

I currently run an online business from home and have free time that I want to dedicate to learning more about real estate and expanding my investments. I purchased my first property in 2009 (a 3 bedroom town home), but a friend of mine did 95% of the legwork, while I provided the finances, so I didn't learn much about buying property then.

I am most interested in the buy & hold (or buy, fix & hold) strategy, focused on SFRs and small multi-family. Everybody tells me that San Diego is a terrible place to invest right now, but I'm determined and would rather first look for investments here than somewhere else.

I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you (and especially those from San Diego!), learning and being an active member of thus community. I would say that I'm actively looking for a local mentor, but I know that such requests are often viewed with well-deserved skepticism, so I plan to first network as much as possible and prove myself.

I'm going to attend the SDCIA and FIBI meetings next month, so maybe I'll see some of you there!